Harry Potter and the Uncle of Secrets
by Disgruntlement
Summary: Manipulative Old Bastard Attempts To Seize Control Over The Potter Vaults, You Won't Believe What Happens Next!
1. Chapter 1

**Obligatory Disclaimer: Harry Potter as well as any quotes from other works don't belong to me.**

* * *

"Welp, I guess I was doomed from the start," was Harry Potter's last thought as the killing curse rushed towards him.

Harry had always expected a simple fade to black during the transition between life and afterlife, so he was quite confuzzled as his emeralds of doom and gloom roamed across what seemed to be King's Cross Station crystallizing itself out of the mystickal white nothingness.

"I knew getting killed at the graveyard would come back to bite me in the arse one day," the gloriously gryffindorish quidditch sensation thought melodramatically.

He was slightly surprised when he noticed he was still carrying all three Hallows.

His ruminations were interrupted by a portal appearing on his northwest. Out of it came a pale girl dressed in black, followed by two more girls who were identical to the first one and an uncomfortable looking young man whose black shirt had the ominous inscription "tfw no gf" emblazoned upon it.

The first girl dramatically gesticulated with her arms and made to speak.

"Wait, you're not my parents," Harry interrupted her. "Also this doesn't look like it did last time. Where's the field of flowers? Where am I? Who are you?"

The raven-haired enigmatic amassment of general mysterious forebodingness shot Harry an irritated glare and cleared her throat.

"I am Death, Harry Potter," she huffed. "You are currently in what we refer to as Limbo. Also, you completely ruined my moment, so thanks for that. You're already the worst Master of Death we've ever had, and I'm not even talking about your numerous other fuck-ups, Mr. Potter of the many lordships!"

"Wait what, lordships?" Harry asked. It was fitting that he was back at King's Cross, he mused, because the Headache Express sure was coming fast today, choo choo.

"See, that's what I'm talking about!" the girl theatrically stated, pointing a deathly finger at him. Harry mentally dubbed her Death Number One. "If you'd known about them, you could've saved all those people you were supposed to save, among other things. And to top it all of, you picked the wrong girl!"

" _Excuse me_?" Harry exclaimed. He was starting to feel quite indignant. He'd been perfectly happy with Hannah, thank you very much.

"Yeah, you completely missed your soul bond connection to Ginny Weasley, you utter numbnut!" Death Number Two interjected.

The third girl rolled her eyes at her.

"Dammit Ainsley, you're thinking of the wrong continuum again. This one was bonded to Susan Bones during the troll event in his fifth year."

"That's ridiculous!" Harry protested. "We were aware of our connection from the very start and we used it as a tactical advantage multiple times. Which is _all it's supposed to be_. Haven't you freaks ever heard of the wizarding soulphone?! All of us had at least three connections going at all time, it was necessary if you wanted to survive."

"Irrelevant," Death Number One declared, "they're wrong anyway. You were destined to marry Katie Bell and have lots of quidditch playing children." She got a disturbing gleam in her eyes at that.

"That's the most random thing I've heard all year," Harry stated flatly.

Before any of them could answer, the portal opened again and another pale black-haired, black-eyed girl clad in deathly black stumbled through it and fell to the floor in a heap. She seemed out of breath and was slightly more wild-eyed than the other ones. Harry mentally dubbed her Death Number Five, although he wasn't too sure if he should count the guy in the questionable shirt.

"Harry Potter" Death Number Five squeaked in a voice that uncomfortably reminded Harry of Dobby, "it is my great honour and pleasure to announce to you that you have been selected by Fate as the first test subject for our Second Chance Program, now with free time turner! However, the bad news is you'll have to spend your new life in abstinence until Gabrielle Delacour comes of age!"

The other Deaths facepalmed. Harry saw red.

"That's it, that one went too far. I have the Wand, the Stone and the Cloak, you're all fired," he boldly declared, his eyes and nose spitting the angry fire of the righteous.

They all stared at him in shock. Harry stared right back, like the badass he was. Absolutely nothing happened.

"Yeah, that's not quite how it works," came a voice from behind him.

Harry felt dread well up in his chest and sweat erupt from his scrumptious messy Potter eyebrows. The voice had a really menacing quality to it, like a particularly aggressive blender choking on earthquakes. Harry slowly turned around and realised he'd been bamboozled. There was just no way _this_ wasn't the real Death, he had a black cloak and a scythe and everything! Not to mention the fact that he was a skeleton.

"I am Death, Harry Potter," Death rasped. "Welcome to these hallowed halls. My apologies for testing my newly-created assistants on you, they clearly need some fine-tuning."

"You need to tell that one to calm the fuck down," Harry said, pointing at Death's Assistant Number Five.

Death narrowed his eyes at the now blushing girl, a feat he somehow managed without actually having eyes.

"Noted."

There were a few seconds of awkward silence, after which the assistants left, clearly realising that they were neither needed nor wanted at the moment.

"So, uh," Harry said, fervently hoping that Death wouldn't smite him into the Realm of the Even More Dead for his insolence in the face of an entity that was quite possibly omnipotent. After all, Death also controlled Time and probably Fate, a fact that all wizarding children learned in wizarding kindergarten. "Does my being in possession of the Hallows actually grant me any power over you? Like, can I tell you not to claim someone?"

Death gargled a chuckle that sounded like lava hitting water at terminal velocity.

"Once again, Mr. Potter, that's not exactly how it works. If someone is next on my list, there's nothing anyone can do to change that," he explained. "You can however manipulate circumstances to make their death less horrible than it otherwise would have been. For example, you could have arranged for Sirius Black to die of a simple killing curse, instead of being dissolved in a pool of sulfuric acid while being eaten by bullet ants."

Harry had to close his eyes for a second at the memory of his godfather's gruesome demise. Then an unrelated question apparated into his already thoroughly blown mind.

"Oh by the way, am I stuck here? I want to go to the afterlife and see my dead friends again!"

Noticing his quickly growing panic, Death chortled a gurgle that brought to mind the sound of a thousand meteors crashing down from above, twice.

"Of course you can go to the afterlife, Harry Potter," he hissed. "It's just that as the Master of Death, you get to circulate freely between Limbo and the afterlife, as well as the Soul Well, where souls devoured by dementors or damaged by excessive horcruxing get recycled. You also get a private penthouse and free access to the multiverse, including time travel, for no damn reason!"

"Wait, what," Harry stammered.

"Unfortunately, I already wasted way too much time with you," Death continued briskly, ignoring Harry's many implied questions. "I have a job to do, so I'm just going to leave you to your own devices. Don't break too many realities!"

With that, Death skipped away, his robes fluttering behind him in a display that put everything Snape had ever been capable of to shame.

Harry was so confused he didn't even manage a simple "what", so he just stumbled his way through King's Cross until his steps led him to a massively mirobolant mansion made of miraculously magnificent marble. That had to be the penthouse.

Harry definitely wanted to talk to his parents again, as well as all the friends and godfathers he'd lost in the war, but decided he'd use this opportunity to grant himself twenty-four hours of rearranging his mind first, along with a healthy sprinkle of self-pity at having died so closely before the end of the war. He'd really looked forward to finally having peace after all the shit he'd lived through in his twenty-two years. Ah well, this was still better than nothing.

* * *

Ten hours later, the sound of drunken giggling rang through the mansion, slowly escalating into a full-blown cackle. A very alcoholised Harry was currently looking at a particulary entertaining universe where another version of him had made an impact on both wizarding and muggle history. He'd already checked on his own world and noted with no small amount of satisfaction that Dumbledore and Hermione were nearly done with their crazy plan to get rid of Riddle, and now that there were no horcruxes or prophecy children left to complicate things, he gave them perfect odds of success. Oh, he'd have _words_ with Tom once whatever was left of the bastard's soul made its way here...

After that, he'd discovered the everfull bar that apparently came with the penthouse, a bonus he hadn't expected, but hadn't complained about either.

"Pffffchrrrt," Harry snickered, "I'm so famous in this one that people are actually publishing stories about me on the internet, would you look at that!"

Harry used the kaleidoscope of realities to peek over an unsuspecting person's shoulder and started to read from their screen.

ONCE UPON A FUCKING TIME HARRY'S SECRET UNCLE TOOK HIM AWAY FROM THE DURSLEYS AND RAISED HIM AND TAUGHT HIM LOTS OF WANDLESS MAGIC AND MARTIAL ARTS AND ANDROMEDA TONKS TAUGHT HIM EVERYTHING ABOUT WIZARDING HISTORY AND PUREBLOOD ETIQUETTE AND THEN HARRY WENT ON THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS AND HELD A ROUSING SPEECH ABOUT HOW THE HOUSE DOESN'T MATTER AND THEN HE WENT TO SLYTHERIN AND HERMIONE WENT TO SLYTHERIN BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO MAKE THE WIZARDING WORLD MORE PROGRESSIVE WHICH WAS VERY AMBITIOUS AND WOULD NEED A LOT OF CUNNING AND RON WENT TO SLYTHERIN BECAUSE HE WAS GOOD AT CHESS AND THEN HARRY PUNCHED MALFOY IN THE MOUTH AT THE SLYTHERIN TABLE AND CALLED HIM A DEATH EATER AND DUMBLEDORE WAS DISAPPOINTED AND STOPPED TWINKLING AND MANIPULATED EVERYONE INTO THINKING THAT NEVILLE WAS THE PROPHECY CHILD BECAUSE HARRY HAD GONE DARK AND THEN HARRY STILL KILLED VOLDEMORT BY STABBING HIM WITH A SWORD OF GRYFFINDOR PATRONUS TO PROVE HE WASN'T DARK AND THEN HE BECAME MINISTER OF MAGIC AT 20.

THE END.

"I like the part with the secret uncle," Harry chuckled to himself after he was done spraying firewhiskey through his nose. Then he scrolled through a few more realities, before stopping short as he noticed something utterly unacceptable.

"Wh-what the hell are they doin' to him?!" he exclaimed, watching a younger version of himself getting repeatedly stabbed with a crowbar by a furious Vernon Dursley. "My vvversion of the Dursles weren't that bad by a llllong shot..."

Harry scrolled his way through that particular world, searching for the cause of this worrying change. He was even more scandalised when every clue led back to Dumbledore.

"Nnnnoow that's jus' insulting..." he slurred, taking a large swig of exploding vodka that made him shoot fireballs from his ears, "Mmmy Dumbly... Dummel... Dumborder was the best most awesomest wizard ever!"

Looking at his suffering alter ego, Harry made a snap decision. It was time to drastically improve the poor guy's life. It was time for...

Secret. Uncle. Intervention.

* * *

 _1991, another world..._

Hidden in the deepest bowels of Hogwarts, in the wretched hive of scum and villainy known as the Headmaster's Office, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was sitting in his evil chair, mapping out his next evil plan on his evil desk while eating evil candy. He was giddily anticipating the upcoming enrolling of the Boy-Who-Lived at Hogwarts and all the succulent manipulation that would inevitably follow. His evil phoenix was lovingly watching over him.

Suddenly, Dumbledore's Spying-on-Harry-Potter device exploded, signaling the boy's likely disappearance from the evil wards he'd placed around 4 Privet Drive. Startled, the Headmaster spat out a handful of lemon drops.

"The mudbloods are attacking, get the trebuchet!" Phineas Nigellus' portrait shrieked.

Ignoring him, Dumbledore grabbed his trusty phoenix and wooshed straight into the Dursleys' living room.

"Jesus Christ," Vernon Dursley yelled, "it's the damn freaks again. Petunia, get my drill!"

Dumbledore quickly stunned the panicking woman, before addressing the fuming Dursley patriarch.

"Where is Harry Potter?" he asked, putting on his best Stern Headmaster Face. Vernon wasn't impressed.

"Ah, so _now_ you check on him. Well you're out of luck, abomination! Another one of your kind got to him first. Said he was his secret uncle from Australia or some such nonsense. Said he was going to make him into the best freak that ever lived, whatever that means."

"And you didn't think it might be a ruse by a child kidnapper?" the Headmaster asked incredulously.

Vernon laughed, his demonic baritone echoing through the house and making the walls vibrate.

"Of course we did, that's why we went along with it."

"Drat," quoth Dumbledore.


	2. Chapter 2

_August 1996_

Harry stood in the middle of Ollivander's wand shop, barely managing to hold on to his newly acquired holly and phoenix feather wand as it released yet another tornado of abyssal darkness. A gaping chasm ripped the floor in half, unleashing a stream of fire into the shop, setting the surroundings ablaze. The front window exploded into pieces, and soon most of Diagon Alley was filled with impenetrable hellish blackness and echoing with the screams of the damned, as well as the desperate cries of countless children who were convinced they'd never see another Christmas.

Over the last five years, Harry had accomplished several truly amazing feats of magic with his cherry wood and dragon heartstring wand he'd bought in southern France during his first week abroad, but he'd always felt as if something was lacking. Now he knew what.

"I CAN FEEL THE OVERPOWEREDNESS FLOW THROUGH ME!" the prodigiously proficient potterer yelled with the exuberance of the batshit insane.

"Holy fuck, I think there's an earthquake on the way," his secret uncle shouted through the noise, doing his best not to get swept up by one of the tornadoes and flung into the heavens, never to be seen again.

After a few more terrifying seconds, the singularity stopped as suddenly as it had started. Ollivander repaired the entirety of Diagon Alley, his shop and his numerous broken bones with a single wordless flick of his wand, thereby proving that he wasn't human.

"I believe we have found your match, Mister Potter," the ancient man calmly stated, as if all of this had been just another Tuesday to him, even though it was Wednesday.

"I predict you'll surprise the populace of Magical Britain on a regular basis," he went on. "This is most curious however, for not only does this wand share a phoenix with the one that gave you your fabled scar, it also was a special commission by Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, High Chancellor of Rivendell and Supreme Wugglebump of the International Council of Werewolves. Most curious indeed... "

Harry and The Uncle narrowed their eyes at each other.

"Well that's not suspicious at all, is it?" they muttered in perfect sync.

* * *

Almost a month later, Harry was sitting alone in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express, nearly bursting with excitement. Finally he'd get the full Hogwarts Experience. During his gruelling training under The Uncle's ever watchful eye, he'd gone from abused orphan to archmage of a rarely seen before caliber, and he couldn't wait to rub it in everyone's faces. Especially Dumbledore's.

Saying his goodbyes to the man who'd done so much for him hadn't been easy, but it wasn't like he would never see him again. Furthermore, while The Uncle seemed to understand Harry on a level that had made him wonder more than once if they might be two versions of the same person, he was a hard taskmaster and had the annoying tendency of amusing himself at Harry's expense on a regular basis.

 _I can't believe he managed to avoid going to Gringotts again,_ Harry thought. He'd really wanted to finally try "the thing" on the goblins, but somehow The Uncle always seemed to have just enough cash on him to make such a trip unnecessary. Even Harry randomly deciding to buy the newest Firebolt model hadn't blindsided the man. Ah well, maybe he'd manage to visit the pesky critters during Christmas break.

Harry grabbed his sixth year transfiguration textbook from his barely enlarged single-compartment magical trunk and was about to begin a session of knowledge-refreshing, when he was interrupted by the door of his compartment opening, letting in two identical redheads. They wore vaguely evil grins and seemed one or two years above the maximal recommended Hogwarts age.

"Harry Potter!" they chorused in eerie sync.

"So the rumours-" the first one began.

"-weren't lying!" the other continued. Harry had a very bad feeling about where this was going to go.

"The legendary-"

"-Boy Who-Lived-"

"-slayer-"

"-of dark lords-"

"-and dragon lords-"

"-finally-"

"-graces us-"

"-with his-"

"-p-"

"-r-"

"-e-"

"-s-"

"Mother of Godric, please stop, you're going to destroy my mind!" Harry pleaded, his eyes wide.

"-ence," the second twin finished. Harry wanted to stab something, possibly himself.

"You may refer to us as Degree and Frog, Britain's number one connoisseurs of all things candylicious," the first twin proudly declared, displaying generous amounts of mock pomposity. "May we offer you a few samples of our newest creations as a welcoming gift, Mister Potter?"

 _Ohohoho, so that's what they're doing_ , Harry thought. He activated his word- and wandless detecting magic and scanned the bag of colourful treats Frog was brandishing. Noticing multiple high level pranking enchantments, Harry pointed an accusing finger at them.

"Fools!" he proclaimed as theatrically as he could, "You weren't ready for my skill. This candy is full of admittedly expert pranking magick. Nothing escapes the son of Prongs!"

They stared at him in total flabbergastationment.

"Son of...Prongs?" Degree choked out. Tears of joy were beginning to form in the corners of his eyes. "Godric's galloping gargoyles!"

"Helga's horny honeybadgers!" Frog rallied.

"Rowena's rambunctious rhinoceroses!"

"Salazar's sneer-adorned snobs!"

"Could it be?!"

"We're not worthy, we're not worthy," they cried, rolling around on the floor and straight out of the compartment. On their way out, they threw a piece of nondescript parchment at Harry, who avidly picked it up, having heard many stories from The Uncle about the only Potter heirloom Dumbledore hadn't managed to steal.

He didn't have time to check it's authenticity though, because another visitor entered his compartment just at this moment.

"Uh, I, uuuh, sorry, uhm," the insecure looking boy stammered. He seemed to be about Harry's age. "Have you seen my toad?"

Harry took one look at him and immediately knew that this had to be the Longbottom heir. Longbottoms were famous for unleashing their massive potential in spectacular feats of heroism and being utterly useless before that. Harry decided to declare his alliance to him on the spot, as it was bound to come in handy sooner or later. He ejected himself from his seat with all the force he could muster, making Longbottom jump into a wall.

"Accio toad!" he intonated imperilously.

A whole swarm of poor innocent toads were ripped from their homes in the wilderness and flung through the window of the Hogwarts Express, even though said window was closed. No one could withstand the power of a Potter on a mission.

"M-Merlin's underwear, Harry," Longbottom hyperventilated, clearly recognizing the Boy-Who-Lived for who he was after this demonstration of power, "don't scare me like that, I almost died."

Indeed, the last scion of Longbottom seemed to be about to reach his fear-induced ebullition point. Another toad came flying into the compartment, this time through the door.

"Well, at least you found Trevor, so thanks for that," the slightly pudgy, potential-filled and walnut-orbed blonde ball of aristocratic nerves said, grabbing his toad and recombobulating himself. "I'll totally take your side in the Wizengamot and stuff once I'm of age."

Then he left. Harry made another attempt at opening his transfiguration textbook, but it wasn't meant to be. His compartment was intruded upon by another young man, looking even richer and blonder than the previous one.

Harry's newest visitor sneer-smiled at him in a way that tried to be unsettling.

"Well, well, well, look who finally deigned to show up."

Harry decided he didn't like whoever this was. Probably a Malfoy, going by the description The Uncle had given him.

"Luckily for you, I come in peace," Malfoy grandly declared, puffing up his chest like a turkey during mating season. "My illustrious father has decided to bestow upon you an offer of alliance, coming with a yearlong No Backstabbing Clause, no less. Thus, I hereby formally invite you to come over to my compartment and have a look at my ever-growing collection of pureblood acquaintances."

He tried to punctuate this offer with a winning aristocratic smile, but it ended up coming across as a warped version of a saucy wink. The guy's lacking skill at sounding pretentious despite using complicated wording didn't endear him to Harry either.

"When you say _your illustrious father_ , are you per chance talking about Lucius Malfoy?" Harry asked, piercing the poncy pureblood's armor with a single well-aimed question.

"Lucius 'Luscious Lucius' Malfoy?" Harry mercilessly went on. "Lucius 'I was totally imperiused' Malfoy?"

"I think you meant Lucius 'will definitely hear about this' Malfoy, you fucking prick," Malfoy spat, dropping his facade without hesitating. "No one can say I didn't try my absolute hardest. If you'd rather have me as an enemy, so be it."

He proceeded to poutingly leave the compartment. Harry sent the toads after him.

Before he could even think about picking up his textbook again, his compartment was invaded by a pugfaced girl.

"Seven hells," Harry frustratedly erupted, "I just want to read my fucking book!"

The girl raised a sneer-implying eyebrow at him.

"Well excuuuuuuse me, princess," she sarcasticated, "I was just looking for my ferret. I won't steal your precious reading time for longer than necessary, as I would get polluted by your clearly half-blooded presence anyway."

"Oh, that one," Harry said, ignoring her attempt at an insult. "He left not even a minute ago, just follow the frog noises."

She left without thanking him. Harry repaired the still broken window, and waited ten seconds. Then he carefully extended a hand towards his transfiguration textb-

"Oi mate, have you seen my rat?"

"I give up," Harry sighed, before addressing the tall redhead who'd just entered his compartment. "Also I'm not doing another summoning charm, I just repaired the window."

"Now why the hell didn't I think of that," the other boy muttered. "Accio Scabbers!"

Soon after, the ugliest rat Harry had ever seen flew through the door, followed by a girl wielding a prefect badge and hair that filled about half of the compartment.

"Oh my God, are you doing _M-A-G-I-C_?" she squealed. "Let's see it then!"

"Merlin, 'mione," the redhead sighed. Harry noticed he was also wearing a prefect badge. "Are you really going to keep doing this every year?"

"Damn right I will, Ronald," the girl named Mione replied, "It never fails to yield entertaining results. And don't call me 'mione."

"Sure thing, 'moine."

The girl apparently not named Mione closed her eyes for a second, visibly trying not to destroy everything around her. Harry decided to honour her request before she changed her mind and blasted them all to shreds. He pointed his wand at the rat and intoned "Homorphus!"

The ugly rodent transformed itself into an even uglier man, shocking everyone into silence. Longbottom, who had trailed after the girl and hadn't been noticed so far, fainted.

"...is that Peter Pettigrew?" Harry wondered, anticipating mucho sweet revenge.

"Holy shitting _fuck_!" Peter screeched and jumped through the window.

"Dammit, I just repaired that," Harry sighed, unbreaking the window once more. "Whatever, doesn't seem like I'll get to read in peace today, so we might as well introduce ourselves. I'm Harry."

"I'm Hermione Granger," Hermione Granger said, taking a seat next to the window. She pointed at the redhead. "This is my fellow prefect Ronald Weasley, although he mostly goes by Ron. The unconscious boy in the corner is Neville Longbottom. That was some impressive magic, Harry!"

"Yeah, thanks for that, mate," Ron said, sitting down next to her. "I can't believe my rat was a creepy bald bloke, I have to eat to distract myself."

He unpacked several mountains of sandwiches from _somewhere_ and began inhaling them at record speed. Hermione wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"I'll never get over your eating habits, Ron. I just can't imagine it's healthy."

"Yeah, sorry," Ron addressed Harry with an embarrassed shrug, "I fell into a barrel full of magical trunk expansion enchantments when I was a baby, my metabolism hasn't been the same ever since. I'm basically a magical trunk myself."

"I get the part about having to eat a lot," Hermione said while Harry stared at Ron in fascination, "but do you really have to do it that fast?"

"I don't have to, but I want to, Mia," Ron replied, devouring another two sandwiches in two seconds.

"Don't call me Mia, Ronald."

"Sure thing, Maya."

"Please don't kill everyone," Harry pleaded, worriedly watching Hermione's increasing scowliness. Thankfully, they were distracted by the arrival of two more witches into their compartment. The first one had hair that was about as red as a carrot on fire, the other was blonde and seemed to keep her mind in an entirely different plane of existence.

"Can we sit here?" the carrot witch asked, "Everywhere else was full... of assholes."

"Sure, why not," Hermione said, calming herself once again. "Hi Ginny, hi Luna. This is Harry."

"Blessings of the snorkack upon thee, Most Exalted One," Luna addressed Harry. Then her eyes went white and she uttered several unintelligible prophecies, before collapsing next to Neville. Everyone politely ignored this.

Ginny took a seat next to Harry.

"Is it true that you were hunting vampires in Romania when you were eight years old?" she asked him with a look of fangirlish adoration.

"Actually," he replied, "I was getting punched with a sharpened frying pan by my uncle at that age."

"Ha!" Hermione triumphantly exclaimed, pointing a victorious finger at Ginny and satisfiedly smiling the smirk of the smugly superior, "I told you those books were lying. That's the kind of nonsense you'd find in the Quibbler."

Luna interrupted her sleep to hiss and spit a stream of liquid flame at Hermione, setting her hair ablaze. The bushy-haired fountain of knowledge casually put the fire out and regrew her locks without missing a beat.

"I was hunting nundus in Africa with my secret other uncle when I was twelve, though," Harry said, bracing himself for another one of Hermione's rage fits. Ginny joined Neville and Luna in unconsciousness, the image of her childhood hero being _that badass_ clearly proving too much for her.

Hermione closed her eyes and counted to five. Then, with an over-exaggerated huff, she unpacked one of her books and took a large bite out of it.

"Uuuuuuhm," Harry uuuuuuhmed. He hadn't seen that one coming.

"I'm a bookworm, Harry," Hermione explained between two bites. "We're a separate species from humans, surviving and gathering knowledge by consuming literature."

Harry looked at her in amazement while she continued her meal. _Book eating aliens. That is so fucking hot._

His improper thoughts were interrupted by Ron.

"Wait, when you said your name was Harry, you meant you were _Harry Potter_?!"

* * *

At the end of the train ride, Harry wept a single manly tear as he realised that, now that his globetrotting days were over, this merry bunch of maniacs would be the first friends he'd keep for more than two weeks. He felt confident that things would only go further uphill from here.


	3. Chapter 3

After leaving the Hogwarts Express, the group of six made their way to the coaches. Harry let out a high-pitched squeal and immediately began to stroke the thestrals.

"What the heck are you doing, Harry?" Hermione inquired.

"He's greeting the thestrals," Luna explained.

"Thestrals aren't real, Luna."

"Actually, they are," Ginny intervened. "I'm surprised you haven't heard of them, you really should eat more books on magical creatures."

Hermione wordlessly unpacked a book from her bottomless bag of books and began to furiously chew on it.

"Did you encounter lots of _Death_ and _Destruction_ during your travels, Harry?" Ginny asked, growing excited at the possibility of her childhood idol having gone through such heroic drama.

"I have seen some serious shit, man," Harry confirmed. Then he splittered off from his new friends to seek out the first year students, as he hadn't yet been sorted. He found them next to a humongous pirate ship, in the company of a massive man with wild hair and an even wilder beard. He was wearing a pirate hat and his left hand had been replaced by a propellable grappling hook.

"YARRRRRR, MATEYS!" the man bellowed, shaking a few shrimp out of his beard. "I be Captain Hagrid, Keeper of the Grounds and Seas! This be me ship, the Pink Umbreller. Stay close ter one another and don' approach the railin', ye never know what the sea's gonna spit out, arrrrrrr."

A few minutes after they'd taken off, Harry had left the group of firsties and approached the railing to admire the majesty of the ocean. Despite the groundskeeper's warning, he felt confident in his ability to deal with any sea monster that would dare stand in his way. Before such a thing could happen, he was accosted by Hagrid.

"Arrrrr, there ye are, Harry. Thought I'd reccergnazed ye earlyrrr. I'm glad yer finally showin' up, yer parrr'nts were good friends o' mine. I was serrpos'd ter take ye frem the Dersles severrr'l years ago, but ye werrrrn't there fo' sum' raisin."

"Hagrid, is your accent getting worse?" Harry asked in puzzlement.

"Arrrrrgh, aye cannae herrrgn wot ye blerrr an' fo' ey oarrrgn feckin' nerrgl gerrbl, arrrr," Hagrid replied. Harry nodded sagely.

Any further conversation was made impossible, as they were approached by an enemy pirate ship full of deathly pale men, shouting warcries and threateningly swinging their grappling hooks.

"Yarrrr, this be the vampire pirates of the Rotfang Conspiracy," Hagrid growled, his expression hardening into one of ferocious bloodlust. "Bad bunch they are, tryin' ter spread their magical scurvy among our students, as a revenge for failin' their NEWTs. They're not ready for me cannons though, arrrr!"

With that, he made a gesture of obscure half-giant magick at the cannons, which promptly started to shoot fireballs at the bloodsuckers, knocking over their parasols. Soon, the undead hordes were burning alive from the sunlight, leading to much cheering and clapping from the firsties. They got even more enthusiastic as several black tentacles came out of the ocean to grab the burning vampires, dragging them into the depths.

"Likes 'em well done, she does, arrrrr," Hagrid said, affectionately watching what had to be the Hogwarts mascot consuming its dinner.

As they reached the other side of the Sea of Hogwarts, Hagrid handed over the group of students to the sternest looking witch Harry had ever laid eyes upon. She introduced herself as Professor McGonagall and led them through a veritable labyrinth of corridors, where they were jumpscared by many ghosts and even a zombie gorilla.

"I can't believe we're getting sorted along with Harry Potter!" one of the firsties exclaimed.

"Ho ho ho, just you wait, kids," Harry said with a grandfatherly chuckle, "I've got something even more exciting prepared for the welcoming feast." He could feel the hype intensifying at this statement, as it damn well should.

After what seemed like ages, they arrived in a huge cavern full of stalagmites, with four abnormally long tables stretching away into infinity, or rather, the horizon. Or even more ratherly, the back wall of the cavern, which wasn't all that far away. Harry felt his mind exploding, until he realised that he'd merely been hallucinating from all the ambient magick his Enhanced Magical Sense™ had been assaulted with. After the initial few seconds of adaptation, Harry saw the place for what it was: a fairly normal hall with four fairly normal tables and a high table along the back wall.

As opposed to the first four tables, which were populated with numerous students who seemed to be sorted by the colour of their ties, the High Table was empty. This had to be the teachers' table, although Harry sure wondered why it was devoid of teachers.

Before there could be any more wondering, the small door behind the High Table violently flew out of its hinges, decapitating an unsuspecting chair that had the misfortune of standing nearby, and in marched Albus Dumbledore, dressed in a nightmare-inducing shade of purple.

"OPEN THE DOOR, GET ON THE FLOOR, EVERYBODY WALK THE DUMBLEDORE!" the hellish Headmaster screamed, stomping around the table. He was followed by a conga line of teachers singing the Hogwarts Hymn. Captain Hagrid was marching at the back, wildly firing his grappling harpoon in the air with one hand, menacingly swinging a salmon with the other and yelling "ARRRRR, ARRRRR, ARRRRR" to the rhythm of the song. Professor McGonagall sighed and sent a prayer of patience to the uncaring heavens.

"I'm going to commit tzatziki," Harry muttered, staring at the morbid spectacle.

After Dumbledore was done showing off his insanity, McGonagall extracted a chair with a hat on it from one of her pockets and placed it in the middle of the hall.

"Well," the Hat said, much to the firsties' amazement, "I don't think I can compete with that. I would have said something about needing more house unity, but you lot never listen to me anyway. Let the sorting commence!"

Harry didn't pay much attention to the sorting, preferring to study the environment with his MagiVision. When McGonagall called his name, he swaggered up to the Hat like he owned the place, sprinkling his patented Potter charisma everywhere. The hall fell silent.

"God damn," the Hat exclaimed as Harry put it on, "that's the most badass shit I've ever seen. GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry joined his fellow Red Ties at the Gryffindor table and started mentally preparing himself for the next step in his plan. He saw Dumbledore amplify his voice and braced himself for the worst.

"Mwahahahaha!" the Headmaster baritoned, "Welcome back to Hogwarts, everyone! I have prepared an extra long speech for this year, and I'm going to hold it _before_ the feast, as the tears of starving students fuel my life energy!"

There were many groans of despair at that. Some of the younger students even started crying.

"First of all," Dumbledore said, "it is my pleasure to announce that Professor Burbage has been upgraded to permanent replacement and will keep teaching you the mysterious ways of the muggles. For those of you who are concerned about the wellbeing of Professor Quirrel, worry not! I have most excellent news, for he has finally found his way back from the albanian jungles and will be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts from now on!"

There was some applause as a traumatized looking young man wearing a turban shyly waved at the crowd.

"Furthermore, I have recruited two old acquaintances of mine to fill two entirely new teaching positions." Dumbledore pointed at two scarred men to his right. "Please welcome Alastor Moody and Remus Lupin as your teachers of, respectively, Defence Against the Even Darker Arts and Defence Against Dark Creatures!"

Thundering applause filled the Great Hall as the students cheered for the most legendary auror in British history and the werewolf who had single-handedly redeemed his kind in the eyes of the general populace by punching Fenrir Greyback to death.

"I have deemed this division of the defence class necessary after taking a look at the OWL results of these last few years," Dumbledore went on. "I blame the curse on the defence position for the lack of competent teachers. It is my most fervent hope that Professor Moody will be the one to finally get rid of it."

"Bastard won't know what hit 'em!" Moody boasted, taking a large swig from his flask and slamming his fist on the table. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Dumbledore made a dramatic pause.

"And last but most certainly not least, I have the honour of introducing my old friend Horace Slughorn as the new potions teacher, allowing Professor Snape to finally fulfill his dream of teaching the Dark Arts."

The Headmaster gestured at the walrus at the far left end of the table and a grumpy looking man on the far right. Harry did a double spit take when he realised that Slughorn was in fact not an overweight man with an amazing moustache, but a literal walrus.

The Slytherins were openly cheering at the prospect of finally learning the Dark Arts, while the Ravenclaws tried and failed to look uninterested. There was some angry muttering from the other two tables.

"I still have more announcements to make!" Dumbledore detonated, shutting down the burgeoning revolution. "The new teachers were mere hors d'oeuvres to the veritable explosion of amazement I'm about to unleash upon you!"

The bearded madman took a few moments to revel in the delicious despair his mention of food had caused. Harry grit his teeth in anger at Dumbledore's lack of morals.

"For the first time in more than a century, Hogwarts will be hosting a duelling club!" Dumbledore proclaimed, "chaperoned by none other than Gilderoy Lockhart!"

There was an avalanche of applause as an obnoxious looking fellow appeared out of thin air next to the Headmaster in a cloud of pink glitter.

 _Dammit, I'll have to keep my speech as short as possible if I don't want to turn the starving masses against me_ , Harry thought.

"Oh, and before I forget," Dumbledore said with a stupid little grin, "we're also hosting the Tri-Wizard Tournament this year."

 _Merlin's fucking balls_ , Harry thought exasperatedly as the entirety of the great hall went past going bananas and straight for the entire fruit salad at the sudden entry of the foreign guests. He was confused for a second as a small cart with a burning junior goblin on it was wheeled in, before realising that this had to be the fabled Goblet of Fire. Thankfully, the creature didn't look like it was in pain and seemed to be loving the attention.

"Holy shit, they have an elf!" a muggleborn first year yelled, "Lord of the Rings is real!"

Upon hearing this, Harry took a closer look at the Beauxbatons students and recognized an old acquaintance from his past travels. _What the hell is_ she _doing here, shouldn't she have graduated already?_ He chalked it up to Fleur being the daughter of Magical France's most infamous adventurer; keeping up with your studies during all the travelling couldn't be easy.

"Dimwit! Bubble! Ointment! Pandiculation!" Dumbledore announced, much to everyone's indifference, before finally sitting down.

 _Oh boy, here's my moment_ , Harry thought. _Better not fuck this up..._

With a single fluid motion, the future Saviour of Wizarding Britain catapulted himself from his chair and straight onto the table.

"BEHOLD, Dumbledore's undoing!" he declared, instantly captivating the crowd with his Killing Curse Colored Emerald Orbs™. "Gaze upon my body and weep, for it has been abused most viciously!"

With that, he ripped his shirt off. The crowd gasped as they realised the horrible truth: Harry's tormentors had beaten him so badly that he literally had no midsection anymore. The two halves of his body were merely held together by his overly large Magical Core™.

"I've spent ten years with relatives who hated me," Harry raged, "and didn't hesitate to show it _every. Damn. Day._ And guess who put me there and never checked up on me! _THIS MAN._ "

Harry pointed at Dumbledore, making the enraptured crowd go _Ooooooooooooh_. Alas, the Headmaster wasn't about to capitulate that quickly. Dumbledore abruptly stood up like a man who'd come to kick ass and chew scenery, only to belatedly realise that there wasn't any ass on the scene. He jumped onto the High Table and ripped his own shirt off.

"Do you even know about the Greater Good, you little _shit_?!" he shouted in a commanding voice. He then proceeded to improvise a call-and-answer performance with the teaching staff.

"WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?"

"THE GREATER GOOD!"

"WHAT ARE WE LIVING FOR?"

"THE GREATER GOOD!"

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?"

"THE GREATER GOOD!"

"WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA?"

"THE GREATER GOOD!"

Not having anticipated this expert move, Harry had to take a second to compose himself _. Don't lose your groove now, he's about to sway them to his side..._

"Are you really going to fall for that maniac's propaganda?" he asked the crowd. "I have written proof that he stole pretty much all of the Light families' heirlooms, why do you think the Dark ones are so much richer these days?! And he's been hording knowledge too, knowledge that would have been much more useful if it was public! Not to mention the fact that he used to be in cahoots with Gellert Grindelwald!"

The crowd erupted like a mighty geyser of anti-Dumbledore sentiment.

"YOU THOUGHT NO ONE KNEW, DIDN'T YOU?" Harry capslocked, "WELL, _MY SECRET UNCLE DID_."

Dumbledore immediately switched off his Dumbletwinkle™ and went deadly serious, his face aging about a century. His beard grew a little hand made of beard hair and started to twirl the Headmaster's moustache with it.

"Ah, Mister Potter," he said, "I didn't want to play my best card early, but you're forcing my hand."

He switched his twinkle back on, only this time it was the dangerous version, announcing the kind of prank that only the truly deranged could come up with. As he was already standing on a table, he had to conjure himself a second, smaller table, which he then jumped onto.

"I present to you," he forebodingly intoned, spreading his arms in a gesture that spoke of incoming doom, "a marriage contract with Daphne Greengrass!"

"Nooooooooooo!" Harry lamented. He had no idea where Dumbledore was going with this and was confident it would lead him exactly nowhere, but sometimes you just had to be a showman to keep the crowd's favour.

"Preposterous!" a Slytherin girl about Harry's age protested, angrily shooting icicles from her pools of liquid nitrogen, "The Ice Clan will hear about this!"

Harry spent two seconds in fake despair, before pointing a mocking finger at the mad Headmaster.

"Fool! This doesn't actually grant you any power over me, for you hold no sway over the Grey families, making it extremely unlikely for them to influence me in your favour. Or in other words: it isn't relevant to anything at all ever and will be canceled in record time!"

Dumbledore cackled like an enraged ostrich.

"Ohoho," he jeered, "but this was only my opening salvo, Mister Potter. This particular contract is absolutely unbreakable, for it has been sealed with Olde Magickque, meaning it will kill you if you try to disrespect it! I also happen to know about a second unbreakable contract to Ginny Weasley. I'm sure you know what this means, for our society only knows one response to polygamy: the death penalty! Since both contracts will automatically activate once you reach your majority, you have about one year left to live."

Harry had _not_ seen that one coming.

"How could this even come to pass?" he wondered aloud. "No parent would be stupid enough to get their offspring killed by setting up two unbreakable contracts!"

"Oh, I most definitely didn't have anything to do with it," Dumbledore said in a way that subtly made it obvious that he most definitely had everything to do with it.

"I'll find a way out of this conundrum," Harry vowed. "You won't get rid of me that easily, old man!"

"Oh, I fully expect you to weasel your way out of it," Dumbledore said with an air of supreme indifference, "but between this and your school work, you'll be too distracted to mess with my magnificently Machiavellian machinations for another year!"

"Drat," quoth Harry.

He now realised that he'd have been better off doing his speech after the feast. Having been thoroughly trounced in public, he surely was about to spend it under much scrutiny from the disappointed crowd of students. He didn't let this minor embarrassment ruin his meal though. In fact, he was internally jubilating, for Harry Potter did not care for opponents that went down easily. The inevitable battle of wits with the mad Headmaster was sure to be entertaining.

Between two bites of broccoli, Harry felt an invading presence in his mind. _Fucking prick doesn't waste any time_ , he thought, sending a bunch of irrelevant memories towards the hostile mindprobe. Feeling a second presence flobberworm its way into his head, Harry covertly glanced up to the High Table, where Dumbledore and Snape were awkwardly looking at each other. The intruders retracted soon after.

During the dessert, Harry felt yet another unwelcome presence in his mind. Throwing an other discreet look towards the teachers, he noticed that Professor Quirrel was sitting with his back towards the students for some reason.

 _Well, that's not suspicious at all, is it?_


	4. Chapter 4

Harry's first week at Hogwarts went by in a breeze.

Monday morning, Professor Sprout bounced her way into the greenhouse like a rabbit high on catnip, singing a cheery song about getting devoured by the lovely flora of Magical Britain. She then proceeded to hand out plants that tried their hardest to do as much physical damage as possible to the students.

"For this first lesson of NEWT Herbology, I have chosen something easy!" she chirped, looking way too pleased with everything, considering her class was getting eaten by greenery. "You'll just have to survive for two hours, as any gardener worthy of the title would. It builds character!"

Harry decided he didn't like Herbology.

The afternoon was pretty much more of the same, as Captain Hagrid introduced them to what seemed to be the most murderous agglutination of random monster body parts known to man.

"Blast-ended skrewts," he explained to the terrified students. "They're basically the cutest critters ye'll ever meet, arrrrr. Friendly, too!"

A particularly foul-tempered skrewt shot one of Malfoy's henchmen in the face, nearly killing him.

"Ah, they grow up so fast," Hagrid sighed, wiping tears made of seawater from his eyes.

As Harry had always been much more compatible with angry animals than with hungry vegetables, he ended up enjoying the lesson quite a lot.

* * *

On Tuesday, Harry strolled into the Charms classroom and did a double take when he correctly identified Professor Flitwick as part goblin. Harry couldn't help himself, he'd waited for this moment ever since he was twelve.

"MAY YOUR ENEMIES DIE HORRIBLY FOREVER," he overenthusiastically shouted in Flitwick's face. The diminutive professor gave him an unimpressed look.

"Five points from Gryffindor for your cheek," he stated flatly. He lasted about five seconds before Harry's devastated expression became too much for him, his poker face melting off like a camembert in the sun as he succumbed to a laughing fit.

"Oh don't give me that look, Mister Potter," he wheezed, trying to compose himself, "I was just messing with you. However, it doesn't actually work on half-goblins like myself. You also have to be inside of a Gringotts building for optimal results."

 _I'll definitely have to make a trip to Diagon Alley during Christmas break,_ Harry thought, trying to contain his excitement.

During Transfiguration class, Harry shocked everyone by simply grabbing his teapot and dipping it into his magical core without bothering with wand movements or any such nonsense. When he pulled it back out, it had become a Galápagos tortoise.

"Well, this is highly irregular, Potter," Professor McGonagall said, wiggling her nostrils at him, "but I'll still grant you ten points for this display of creativity. Do be more careful in the future though, bad things happen to wizards who mess with Transfiguration."

* * *

Wednesday was focused on the Defensive Arts.

Unfortunately, the first lesson of Defence Against the Dark Arts was a total disappointment to Harry. Professor Quirrell seemed competent enough, but he limited himself to rehashing the first year curriculum, which was way below a Prophecy Child's level. Harry wondered just how bad the previous teachers had been. _No wonder Dumbledore split it into multiple classes, I guess we'll get actual NEWT level material with Moody..._

The headaches he always got when Quirrell turned his back on him didn't improve anything either.

Harry expected the worst when Moody started his lesson with a demonstration of the Unforgivables, which were OWL level material. The professor being so creepily cheerful about torturing spiders also didn't do much to alleviate Harry's worries. Things got more interesting when the crazed ex-auror decided to test his student's reflexes and started by transfiguring Malfoy into a ferret and throwing him out the window.

Professor Lupin brought a boggart to his class. When Harry marched up to the creature, it transformed into Lupin and theatrically spread its arms.

"Today, we will unveil your biggest fear in front of _everyone_!" it declared.

The taciturn professor got very embarrassed at that and quickly banished the boggart. Joke was on him, Harry had merely pranked him by misleading the boggart with his advanced occlumency mindscape, thus hiding his true fear from the unsuspecting masses!

* * *

Potions class spanned the entire Thursday, with the morning lessons being devoted to field work in the form of ingredient gathering. Professor Slughorn proved to be much better at navigating the treacherous environment of the Forbidden Forest than Harry would have expected from a walrus, adroitly waddling his way through the undergrowth and scaring away a flock of peacefully grazing centaurs by baring his tusks at them.

The jolly pinniped lost Harry's respect that same afternoon, lingering around his desk for way too long and congratulating him on his upcomging marriages.

"Don't worry too much about the future, Mister Potter," he advised, "one should prioritise the present, no matter how little is left of it."

 _Whatever, you Dumbledore-advertising poser,_ Harry thought. He was a little creeped out when Slughorn also congratulated him on his upcoming execution.

* * *

Friday morning splotched Harry in the face like a drunk man's vomit projectile, as it was to be spent in the company of Professor Snape, who was out for blood.

"Potter!" he sneered, "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"Draught of the Living Dead, sir," Harry answered with the lack of hesitation you'd expect from one who is truly knowledgeable about the Dark Arts.

"What a spectacular demonstration of intellect, Potter," Snape spat. "I'll grant you a whole point to Gryffindor for your erudition. But where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

"In the stomach of a goat, sir."

"Potter, you are impressing the shit out of me with your knowledge," Snape smirked. "This is worth another single point to Gryffindor. But you're not ready for my next one! What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"They're the same plant, sir," Harry answered truthfully.

"I am positively pissing myself with excitement over here, Potter," Snape snarled. "That's worth yet another point. Your advancedness truly jumbles my jimmies."

"Professor," Harry injected, "I thought this was NEWT level Dark Arts and not first year Potions?"

"I'm taking all the points back for your cheek," Snape spittled. "Malfoy, what do you call a potion containment device?"

"A vial, sir," Malfoy replied.

"Ten points to Slytherin," Snape sneerlified.

"But siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir," Harry whined.

"Shut up, Potter, I'm making a point," Snape snorkelled.

* * *

Saturday morning, everyone gathered around the Goblet of Fire in the Great Hall.

"The champion for Beauxbatons will be... Fleur Delacouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur!" the Goblet sang in an operatic tenor, doing a daring pirouette on his cart.

There was no small amount of cheering as Fleur fought her way to the antechamber through drooling boys and angry rivals.

"The champion for Durmstrang will be... Viktor Kruuuuuuuuuuuuum!" the Goblet hollered, causing the windows to rattle.

"What the hell?" Ron shouted, almost inaudible among the thundering applause, "Why is _he_ still in school?"

"I guess all the quidditching must have distracted him from his studies," Harry suggested. "This doesn't seem fair though, they're both above Hogwarts age. Is our champion gonna be one of your twin brothers or what?"

"Pffff, it will probably be Diggory," Hermione complained. "He's still here because of a prank they pulled on him, involving a timeturner and a vanishing cabinet."

"The champion for Hogwarts will be... Hermione Graaaaaaaaaanger!" the Goblet tenorated.

"OH HELL YES!" Hermione screamed.

"Wait, what?" Harry asked.

"I thought your birthday was on the nineteenth!" Ron rallied.

"That's my official human birthday," Hermione explained, "but I'm actually three weeks older than that. You don't want to know how members of our species are born, it's ridiculously complicated."

As she made her way to the antechamber, the Goblet performed a sequence of perplexing movements, not entirely dissimilar to the dance of a bee warning its comadres of an enemy hornet attack.

"The second champion for Hogwarts will be... Harry Potteeeeeeeeeeeeer!" he announced, causing the crowd to go wild.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Harry said, conjuring himself a wall and slamming his head against it, "I'll bet my biscuits this is somehow Dumbledore's fault."

* * *

That same evening, there was a big party in the Gryffindor common room. Harry had been told that his house had one every Saturday, but this one was bound to be particularly impressive, considering two Gryffindors had just been chosen as Tri-Wizard Champions.

The center of the common room had been made into an already well-populated dancefloor, with music playing from a magical jukebox. Seamus Finnigan was standing between two barrels of firewhiskey, selling drinks to everyone who looked old enough. Cormac McLaggen was occupying a stand at the northeastern corner of the room and selling motivational books written by himself. He was currently bragging to a group of fourth year boys about the many witches he'd apparently impressed with what he called his Masterfully Crafted Engine of Doom.

"...And So Will _You_ ," Harry could hear him advertise, "If You Follow These Seven Easy Steps! Buy My Amazing Advice Before It's Too Late! Only One Galleon Per Book!"

"Fuck yeah mate," Ron told Harry, "this is the best day of my life. I can't wait to leech all the collateral fame!"

"Our rivalry will be a show for the ages!" Hermione added.

"Indeed," Harry agreed, "I might as well roll with it. All Dumbledore achieved in the end was to offer me an opportunity to get even more popular. I'll crush him with my influence over the public!"

Soon after, they were accosted by a pair of familiar looking identical redheads.

"Look who it is!"

"The one and only Harry Potter!"

"Destroyer of demons!"

"Slayer of sasquatches!"

"Second champion of Hogwarts!"

"Who we most definitely haven't met before!"

"We are Gerd and Geerof," the left twin said.

"May we offer you some chocolate?" the right one asked.

"No thanks, you're Fred and George," Harry replied, unimpressed.

George popped one of his products into his mouth, causing his skin to turn bright yellow, with brown spots.

"No I'm not," he protested, "I'm a geerof, mooo!"

"Mate, you look like a banana," Ron deadpanned.

George ran away and into a wall, knocking himself out.

"Hmmm," Fred mused, "that one still needs some work."

"Why are you even still at Hogwarts?" Harry wondered. "Too much pranking, not enough studying?"

"I'll have you know that we already graduated, with excellent grades no less," Fred said. "We're just here during weekends, to sell our delicious confectionery! Although innovating is getting hard with all those pesky new regulations..."

His face was taken over by a wistful look.

"I still fondly remember Russian Roulette Caramels..."

"Do I want to know?" Harry asked.

"One piece per five thousand bags was a portkey into an active volcano," Fred sighed. "Those were the days..."

* * *

After spending two hours dancing and/or being accosted by crazed fans, Harry was dragged away from the dancefloor and into a quiet corner of the room by Hermione. Ginny was waiting for them.

"So, Harry," Hermione began, "have you already started investigating? I don't suppose you put your name in there yourself, what with your other distractions and all."

"Distraction being the keyword," Harry said. "This just _has_ to be Dumbledore's doing. He already admitted he wanted to keep me busy."

"I can't believe that freak would use _me_ of all people to kill you, Harry," Ginny ranted. She looked absolutely livid, going so far as to emit smoke from her ears. Harry gave her a questioning look.

"Oh don't look at me like that," she said irritatedly, "just because you're my hero and all doesn't mean I'm okay with a fucking marriage contract. Especially not that early, mum will never let me hear the end of it. She'll use it as an argument for me to start my housewife career as soon as I leave school or something. I need at least two decades of adventuring before I even consider that!"

"So you'll help with our dumblethwarting plans?" Harry asked with no small amount of relief.

"Damn right I will," Ginny confirmed. "That fucker is going dumbledown!"

"Excellent," Harry stated. "Moving on, I already found out who did it: it was Moody!"

"Huh?" Ginny asked. "Didn't you just say it was Dumbledore?"

"Oh come on," Hermione interjected, "everyone knows those two are thick as thieves. Moody probably did it on his behalf. I'm more interested in how you found out, Harry."

"I asked the Goblet. Moody apparently bribed him and then obliviated him after the champions were called out, but the Goblet of Fire is protected against harmful magic."

Hermione scrunched up her eyebrows.

"This doesn't make sense," she muttered. "The fact that the Goblet was on fire should have clued him in about the immunity, those weren't bluebell flames. I can't believe someone like Moody would make such an amateur mistake..."

"Something's definitely going on there," Harry agreed. "Further investigation seems unavoidable."

* * *

Before he went to sleep, Harry tried to contact The Uncle through their magical mirror, but he got the same message as most of the times when The Uncle wasn't physically present.

 _'You do not have access to other dimensions', what the fuck does that even mean? Why did he give me this thing if it's just bugging out nine times out of ten?_

Then, he remembered he still hadn't checked the Marauder's Map he'd gotten from the twins. After activating it, his seeker's intuition immediately led his attention to a dot labelled Quirrellmort.

 _Well, that's not suspicious at all, is it,_ he thought. _The plot pile-up thickens..._


	5. Chapter 5

The next few weeks went by rather uneventfully, with Harry passing most of his time doing research. However, no matter how many hidden libraries he found behind Hogwarts' most hidden doors and no matter how many books on magical contracts Hermione ate, there just didn't seem to be a way to avoid marrying Greengrass and Ginny. Maybe he needed to think outside the box...

On the morning of Halloween, Harry woke up with the strangest feeling.

"Something important is going to happen today," he told his friends, "I can feel it in my spleen."

His premonition confirmed itself at lunch, when their meal was violently interrupted by Professor Quirrell running into the Great Hall, wildly windmilling his arms.

"Massive trolling taking place in the dungeons!" the garlic-scented man screamed. "It's a disaster! An invasion! A veritable trolliferation!"

He then conjured himself a few pillows and lay down on them, clearly pretending to faint.

"Oh shit," Ron exclaimed, "Hermione doesn't know about the troll, we have to do something!"

"Where even is she?" Harry asked him.

"Probably crying in a bathroom somewhere," Ron answered, looking embarrassed. "I might have called her Herms. Maybe switching to the first half of her name was going too far..."

Feeling the call of adventure, Harry extricated his Firebolt from his pocket, unshrunk it and sped towards the troll noises with Ron hot on his heels. When they arrived at their destination, their friend was already fighting the beast with a two-handed battle axe, her face distorted into an expression of pure rage.

"I can't believe this fucking madhouse sometimes," she ranted, dodging a ferociously swung troll club. "I just needed half an hour, _half a fucking hour_ for myself to get some reading done, and what happens?"

Ron was just staring slack-jawed, seemingly having forgotten how to breathe. Drool was starting to dribble down on the floor.

"A fucking mountain troll shows up!" Hermione screeched. "Of all things! How did it even get in here?"

She managed to chop one of the troll's toes off, to which it reacted by slamming its club into a row of sinks, sending debris flying everywhere.

 _I better end this before Dumbledore somehow gets me arrested for vandalism_ , Harry thought. He fired a vicious volley of sneezing hexes right up the troll's nose with expert aim. The belligerent beast unleashed a tidal wave of snot on Harry, who dodged a tad too late, and collapsed in a fit of oversneezing.

"Why would you do that?" Ron groaned, going green.

"I sure hope I didn't kill it," Harry blubbered from somewhere below the glob of snot.

Dumbledore, who had somehow popped out of nowhere during all this, started twinkling all over the place.

"Twenty points to Gryffindor for caring about a sentient being's life," he declared.

"ThankBLEAURGH," Harry said, throwing up from all the troll snot on his face. _Hopefully he doesn't take that as a criticism of his twinkling skills..._

As Dumbledore walked away, carrying the troll over his shoulder and whistling a jaunty tune, Harry finally managed to get rid of the treacherous substance. Hermione had her hands on her hips and was glaring an entire armory at him.

"Honestly, Harold," she huffed, "I had this in the bag, and I'm sure I'd have done it with much more class, too."

"You can't do that," Harry informed her. Confused, Hermione aborted the tirade she was about to direct at him.

"Do what?"

"You can't call me Harold," Harry clarified. "It's not my name."

"...Harrison?" Hermione asked, an expression of distaste growing on her face.

"Nope," Harry said smugly, "just Harry." Hermione opened her mouth and closed it again a second later, before throwing her arms into the air.

"God dammit Harry, now you've completely thrown me off my game. That's some Slytherin shit right there..."

Ron began awkwardly shuffling around.

"Sorry for calling you Herms, Hermy," he mumbled. "Didn't think it would upset you that much..."

"Oh, that," Hermione said. "Don't worry about it, I just needed to get away for a while to snack on an illegal book I found. You'll have to try harder than that to offend me. Still, I'd prefer it if you didn't call me Herms. Or Hermy, for that matter."

Ron grinned like the harbinger of mischief that he was.

"Sure thing, Hermes, God of Merchants!"

Then he gleefully ran away, easily dodging the battle axe Hermione threw after him.

Now it was Harry's turn to do the Awkwardness Shuffle.

"Actually, Hermione, I lied about my name," he began hesitantly. "It's just that I don't want anyone and their owl to hear about this, but you've eaten like an entire library to help me with my marriage problem by now, so I feel like you deserve to know." _And I'm totally not crushing on you because you're a. Book. Eating. Alien. Nooooope..._

Hermione was looking at him expectantly.

"My full name is... Hagrid Potter."

"What."

"My parents were _really_ good friends with the groundskeeper."

* * *

Later that day, Harry used the Marauder's Map to ambush Professor Quirrell.

"Pssssssssssssst. Hey, Garlic Man," he called from behind an enchanted armor stand. "Jig's up. I'm challenging you to a wizard's duel. Midnight, in the third floor corridor. No seconds."

Quirrell dangerously narrowed his eyes at him.

"Bitch, you're _on_."

As the professor walked away, Harry could hear him mutter under his breath.

"Maybe _he_ knows a way past the damn thing..."

* * *

"How did you find out about this place?" Quirrell asked Harry, as they were standing in front of a door in the third floor corridor. "No one knows this castle as well as I, and it took me _weeks_. Dumbledore didn't even drop any hints..."

"Well, you see," Harry started explaining, simultaneously unlocking the door with a basic alohomora, "I happen to be a seasoned explorer and _oooooooooh shit_."

They found themselves in front of a giant three headed dog. Quirrell was looking mighty annoyed indeed.

"I should have paid more attention in Care of Magical Creatures," he complained, "I could have left this place while you were still fighting the troll..."

Harry shook himself out of his funk and began singing a rendition of the Headmaster's introduction theme from the welcoming feast, substituting the word Dumbledore with Voldemort. The cerberus quickly fell asleep.

"I'm going to _annihilate_ you, Potter," Quirrell hissed murderously.

"Yeah well," Harry said flippantly, "that's what you were gonna try anyway, isn't it?"

"Lord Voldemort does not _try_ ," Quirrell corrected him, "Lord Voldemort _succeeds_."

"Pfff, like you succeeded in blowing yourself up back when I was one year old?" Harry mocked him. Quirrell made a sound like a swarm of angry kneazles.

"That was all staged, all according to plan! I had my reasons."

"Whatever you say, Garlic Man."

They proceeded to merrily fiendfyre their way through a bunch of protections that the staff of Hogwarts had installed in a series of secret rooms. Nothing was above the level of a first year student, but if you've mastered Fiendfyre, you might as well show it off.

Finally, they arrived in a circular room with a mirror in it.

"I see myself offering the Stone to my master," Quirrell said, examining the mirror, "so there are chances it's hidden in here somehow... But how do I get it out?"

"Lemme see," Harry said, walking up to the mirror with curiosity. He saw a reflection of himself dropping a suspicious looking stone into his pocket and felt something appear in his own.

"What an interesting trick," Harry marveled, taking the stone out and starting to study it. Then he almost died of a heart attack as realisation hit him. "Wait, holy balls, I had no idea _this_ is what your were looking for! I mean... It is what I think it is, isn't it?"

"It sure is," Quirrell said smirkily, "and you're going to give it to me, for no one stands a chance against Lord Voldemort."

"As if, Garlic Man," Harry said.

"Stop calling me that!" Quirrell growled, pointing his wand. "A-aa-a-v-aaa-d, argh!"

 _Oh hell, what now_ , Harry thought.

"Quirrell, you fool, stop resisting! I'm too weak to cast silent spells in this form. Why now of all times?"

Harry blanched. It was the voice of his nightmares. Quirrell's face began twitching.

"Ha, I tricked you, you deluded fucklord," he yelled triumphantly. "I didn't offer any resistance all this time, letting you think you'd subsumed me, when I was just saving my energy, waiting for the right moment! I never signed up for any of this!"

"You'll rue the day you thought you could stand up to the Dark Lord," Voldemort's voice promised. He managed to control Quirrell long enough to jump towards Harry in a single leap and grab him. However, this only had the effect of incinerating Quirrell's hands.

"OH GOD WHY," the panicking professor cried. His turban fell off and Harry saw the horror that was the back of his head.

"Fucking ew, mate," he said, trying not to lose his dinner while he figured out the ideal next move.

He plunged his hands into his magical core and began rummaging around, searching for the part where his mother's love was. Voldemort's face looked on with disgust.

"Potter," he demanded, "cease your disturbing antics at once! You're making me queasy."

Harry managed to grab his mother's mystical lovemagick and pulled it out of himself, because of course he did. He threw it at Quirrell, expelling Voldemort's wraith from him. The battered professor collapsed.

"Hellfire and damnation," the Voldewraith grumbled, angrily looking down at his spectral form.

"I'm not surprised such a convoluted plan didn't work out for you," Harry admonished him.

"Pah, you haven't seen convoluted until you've seen my back-up plan involving the Tournament," Voldemort bragged.

"Hey, maybe I can use the Stone to survive my execution," Harry mused, ignoring him.

A short man with a goatee and a thin moustache appeared next to Harry and snagged the Stone from him.

"Ah ah ah, did you really think Nicolas Flamel would part with his precious so easily?" he asked. "Mon Dieu, mais quel con! I merely lent it to Albus. Seeing as every plan involving it failed, I might as well take it back early, before he tries to talk me into destroying it. Arrivederci, messieurs!"

He apparated away, straight through the Hogwarts wards. Voldemort used this distraction to slam into Harry with all his might, and everything went black.

* * *

Harry woke up in the Hospital Wing, with the worried faces of his friends looking down at him.

"Uuurgh," he groaned, "how long was I out? Did I miss anything?"

"You were sleeping for twenty-three days," Ron informed him.

"We were really worried about you," Hermione said. "Your magical core was pulsating and shooting lightning and you were mumbling things and-"

"Wait, I was out for _twenty-three days_?" Harry squeaked. How could this have happened? Harry Potter, Major Badass of the Wizarding World, unconscious for weeks because he got punched by a ghost? Preposterous! Not to mention he now had even less time left until his marriage contracts got him killed.

"You have good timing actually," Ron went on, "the first task is tomorrow."

Harry groaned loudly at that.

"Oh that reminds me," Hermione said. "I'm supposed to tell you we'll fight dragons. We had a dragon visiting session the other day, with all the champions and their headmasters. Dumbledore figured everyone would be cheating anyway, so he made it official."

"Dammit, I just woke up," Harry complained. "Oh well, if I'm still shooting lightning from my core by tomorrow, this might be easy... Any other great news I haven't heard yet?"

"Well," Ginny piped up, "Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban two weeks ago!"

Harry perked up at this.

"Oh cool, he was innocent anyway."

His answer caused a moment of general consternation. Finally, Hermione spoke up.

"Uh... Harry? If you knew he was innocent, why didn't you ever tell anyone?"

"Well, I don't have any proof for starters," Harry explained, "only the word of my secret uncle, who seems to be a total nobody around this part of the world. Or any part of the world, really. I mean, even I don't know his name. Not to mention the fact that Dumbledore could have insisted on a trial and didn't, meaning he probably wanted Sirius in prison. I don't have enough influence to go up against the Ministry and the Headmaster at the same time yet. And it's not like we just let him rot in here, we paid him a visit after my uncle adopted me and secretly transfigured his cell into a dementor-isolated deluxe suite. We're also exchanging owls on a semi-regular basis."

"How the heck did you even sneak into Azkaban?" Hermione asked Harry.

"Actually," Harry mused, not wanting to answer _that_ particular question, "it's probably my fault Sirius broke out. I might have mentioned the Pettigrew incident from the train in one of my last owls..."

"Yeah well, thanks for that," Ron said, scowling at him. "We've got dementors all over the place now, everyone's in a shitty mood."

"They're horrible!" Ginny exclaimed. "I keep flashing back to that one time where Grog and Feeder transfigured my puffskein into a swarm of acromantulas and tricked Ron into eating them..."

Hermione shot an incredulous look at Ron, who went pink.

"Alright kids," Madam Pomfrey called over to them, "visiting time is over. Time to get out, or I'l huffle and puffle and blow you away!"

"Oh and I wanted to show you this thing I found," Ginny went on, ignoring the healer's warning and handing Harry what seemed to be an ancient diary. "I was talking to it, but when the dementors showed up, I realised that writing in it actually feels a lot like having your good memories eaten, so I decided our Glorious Saviour of Wizarding Britain should have a look at it!"

"Uh, sure, I'll examine it," Harry said, slightly creeped out by how unconcerned Ginny seemed by all of this. Any further conversation was interrupted by Madam Pomfrey.

"I warned you!" she shouted, before inflating herself and unleashing a ferocious hurricane on Harry's group of friends, sweeping them right out the door. Harry stared at her in wonderment.

"I didn't know this school employed wind elementals," he marveled.

"I don't know why you're surprised, Potter," she replied. "After all, we also have a pirate, a werewolf and a walrus."

* * *

Later that evening, Harry got another visitor. It was Moody.

"Son, lemme tell you about them dragons," the grizzled man began.

"You're way too late," Harry interrupted him. "Hermione already told me. Actually, all the other champions saw them, I'm surprised you didn't know that."

Moody looked slightly put off at that and quickly left.

 _Hermione was right_ , Harry thought, _bloke's a total amateur. No way he wouldn't have coordinated with Dumbledore if he was working for him. And then there's that thing Voldemort said about the Tournament..._

Harry took his trusty Marauder's Map out of his pocket and looked at the dot leaving the hospital wing. It was labelled Bartemius Crouch.

 _What in the world? Don't tell me the Ministry's_ also _after me..._


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, Harry was woken up by what seemed to be a house elf poking him in the side.

"Mmmmfhbl," he mumbled. "What is it, do the Champions get breakfast in bed now or what?"

The elf's abnormally large eyes widened even further.

"Oh, Dobby is so terribly sorry," he cried. "Dobby should have known! Keep Harry Potter from going to Hogwarts, Dobby thought, it will be easy. But noooo, Dobby had to go overboard with the punishments again and get himself hospitalised for three months, and now he can't even make a proper first impression. BAD DOBBY, BAD DOBBY!"

Dobby started banging his head against the wall, much to Harry's dismay.

"Please stop that, you're going to alert Madam Pomfrey," he told the distraught elf. "Trust me, you don't want to mess with a wind elemental. And what do you mean, keep me from going to Hogwarts?"

"There is a plot, Harry Potter," Dobby said gravely. "A plot to unleash a great doom upon this school!"

He started eyeing the diary on Harry's bedside table, his eyes welling up again.

"Dobby can't help but notice that Harry Potter seems to be right in the middle of it already... Dobby might have to resort to drastic measures if he can't convince Harry Potter. Dobby won't like it, but he will do it!"

"Eh, no offense, but I'm not sure you can make me do anything," Harry said.

"Oh, Dobby wouldn't be so sure if he was Harry Potter, Harry Potter," Dobby said, menacingly juggling two bludgers. "Dobby gets many ideas from his masters and always makes sure to test them on himself, yes, Dobby does..."

Harry gave him a flat look.

"Dobby, I killed my first nundu when I was thirteen. Trust me, if anyone is unprepared here, it's you. I can deal with whatever this school throws at me."

"A _nundu_ , Harry Potter?!" Dobby cried, his bulging eyes threatening to take over his entire face. "Oooh, Dobby is woefully uninformed, he should have known those accursed books would downplay the great Harry Potter's greatness... Dobby's masters warned him about his choices of literature, but did Dobby listen? Truly, his overconfidence is a blight upon all elfkind. And now, Dobby has disobeyed his masters for _nothing_! BAD DOBBY, USELESS DOBBY!"

The crazy elf started banging his head against the wall again.

"Oooh, Dobby will have to come up with an entirely new level of punishment, yes, Dobby will. But Dobby has faith in his creativity, it's the only thing that hasn't let him down so far...gnihihi."

Harry conjured a wooden plank and started hitting himself with it, hoping it would wake him up from this nightmare.

"Oh, the great Harry Potter's solidarity is truly unrivaled!" Dobby wailed. "Dobby isn't worthy!"

Harry hit himself harder.

* * *

"What in the hell..." Harry whispered.

"It's like we're not even in Hogwarts anymore," Hermione added.

The four champions were currently standing on a small raised platform, facing the massive amphitheatre that the quidditch pitch had somehow become overnight. The space between them and the public had been made into a vast field of rocks and sand that reminded Harry of his adventures in the Atacama Desert. There were no dragons in sight.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the First Task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament!" Ludo Bagman's voice boomed from somwehere.

"For this task, our champions will be facing dragons! First, we'll be deciding in which order our brave heroes will perform."

Without a warning, Bagman appeared next to the champions, making Viktor jump and Fleur sprout a few feathers. Harry and Hermione, who were quite used to people appearing out of nowhere at this point, didn't react.

"Just take a piece of paper out of this bag," Bagman said, his still amplified voice making Harry's ears ring. "The number on it will tell you when it's your turn."

After each of them had taken a paper, Bagman vanished again, this time reappearing in the middle of the rocky field.

"Each turn, our pocket dimension will randomly regurgitate one out of several species of dragons, which the champion will then have to steal a golden egg from," Bagman explained. "As we didn't want to deprive the champions of the spectacle of a lifetime, we decided to allow them to see what their concurrence is doing! However, this means that the later your turn, the more difficult it will be to impress the audience. Hope all of you thought of multiple ways to get past a dragon!"

Harry, who'd gotten number four, didn't worry too much about that. He'd fought lots of dragons in the past, after all.

Bagman vanished a final time, reappearing on the judges' tribune.

"And with that," he boomed, making the other judges wince and glare at him,"let the games begin!"

There was a loud crack of thunder as a Swedish Short-Snout sitting on a nest appeared in the middle of the rocks. Hermione resolutely walked up to it and started circling it from a distance. Then she took her wand out and fired a trio of harmless looking spells at the dragon.

"Is she... firing diagnostical charms at it?" Bagman wondered.

Meanwhile, Hermione was looking more and more alarmed. The dragon shot a cloud of smoke at her, which she dodged. Harry saw her yell something at it, but the noise of the crowd made it hard to understand. Then, the strangest thing happened. The dragon stood up on its hind legs and fired several jets of fire at Hermione, who dodged each one at the last second by apparating three steps to the left and responded by sending a volley of green sparks harmlessly splashing against the dragon.

"Oh my," Bagman commented, "it seems like she challenged the dragon to a dance-off, and it _accepted_! What an amazing feat of persuasion!"

"She's setting the bar very high," Viktor stated, scratching his nonexistent beard.

After the dragon had made a full turn, it unleashed a massive wave of fire on Hermione, who barely managed to hold on to her shield charm. This went on for about ten seconds, before the dragon abruptly stopped...and transformed into a woman. The audience erupted in panic.

"Oh _shit_ ," Harry said, "that's not a Swedish Short-Snout, that's a Great Dragon of Old!"

"Hermione Granger, you have been deemed worthy," the dragon declared, her voice ringing in everyone's ears despite the fact that she hadn't amplified it.

Hermione raised a victorious fist into the air, seemingly undisturbed by the presence of a powerful ancient being right in front of her.

"Oh calm down," the dragon addressed the crowd, sounding annoyed. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd all be dead already. I just went along with this out of boredom."

"I swear, if this is what the Romanians call a prank..." Bagman said, hiding behind Dumbledore.

"For the love of Merlin, Ludo," the Headmaster said, "if you're going to get that close to me, at least switch the sonorus off."

Meanwhile, Hermione had apparently started a discussion with the dragon, who was animatedly gesturing at her. In the end, she handed a few rolls of parchment to the ancient creature, who gave her a mysterious looking tome in exchange and vanished in a puff of smoke. Hermione plucked the golden egg from the abandoned nest and rejoined her fellow champions, looking supremely smug.

"I'm so glad I learned that dragon-identifying spell," she said, hungrily eyeing her new book. "Great Dragons are known to hoard knowledge like other dragons hoard treasure, I can't believe I was lucky enough to meet one..."

"Unbelievable!" Bagman shouted. "She convinced the dragon to a book trade! Now that's what I call diplomacy skills. This gets a ten out of ten from me!"

Hermione got a ten from Barty Crouch as well, with Karkaroff and Maxime merely giving her five and six points respectively, causing much booing from the crowd. Dumbledore contented himself with a thumbs up. Harry noticed he was wearing a roman toga and wondered if the Headmaster was making some kind of political statement about the nature of the Tournament.

Meanwhile, Fleur had made her way into the dragon zone, where a Welsh Green appeared in front of her alongside its nest. Fleur transformed into her veela form and started parading back and forth in front of it, flapping her wings like a drunk peacock and spitting small jets of flame into the air. Harry thought he could make out the words "hon hon hon, je suis un dragon", but that might have just been him.

"I don't get this," Bagman said, sounding confused. "Is she trying to seduce it?"

Fleur indignantly turned towards the judges' tribune and shot a fireball at Bagman, which he sent flying into the sky with the beater's bat he was carrying.

"I guess not..."

After another minute of posturing from Fleur, the dragon stepped aside from its nest. Instead of contenting herself with the golden egg, the french champion took the entire nest with her, carefully breathing small flames at the eggs as she made her way back to the other champions.

"Finally, I get a pet that is actually interesting," she said.

"I told you the last time we met," Harry said, "all that adventuring is going to make you _eccentric_. But did you listen?"

Fleur just rolled her eyes at him and started making clucking noises at the eggs.

"Amazing!" Bagman announced. "She convinced the dragon that she'd make a better mother for its children! That's another ten from me!"

Fleur got a ten from Madame Maxime as well, a nine from Crouch and a four from Karkaroff, causing more booing. Dumbledore gave another thumbs up.

"Time to get serious!" Viktor said. He transfigured his clothes into a pin-striped suit, a top hat and a pimp cane and marched up to the Chinese Fireball which had just appeared. He cast a sonorus at himself.

"A man says to another man, 'excuse me, sir, you seem to have a carrot in your olfactory canal'", Viktor said, making several complicated wand movements that didn't appear to have any effect. Then he whirled towards the confused dragon.

"Plot twist! _I_ vas the man, and _you_ vere the other man!" he shouted, conjuring fake carrots in the dragon's nose. The angry reptile started stomping around the place and shooting fire at Viktor, who dodged expertly.

"The other man replies, 'I cannot hear you, for I am blind'," the crazy Bulgarian continued, firing a Conjuctivitis Curse at the dragon, who stomped on its nest, destroying most of the eggs in it.

"Noooo, Viktor," Karkaroff cried, "you're going to lose points!"

"Hohoho, plot twist number two!" Viktor proclaimed, "vile I vas distracting you vith my stories, I conjured illusory eggs and disillusioned the real ones!"

He made another elaborate wand gesture. The nest with broken eggs disappeared, with the real one becoming visible a few feet to the left from it. Viktor then took off his top hat and pulled the golden egg from it.

"This is vat ve call the Wronski Feint!" he declared. The audience responded with thundering applause.

"I have no idea what the hell just happened," Bagman said, "but this is worth another ten from me!"

Viktor got an nine from Crouch, a ten from Karkaroff and a five from Maxime, as someone needed to cause the obligatory booing after all. Once again, Dumbledore gave a thumbs up.

There was a final crack of thunder and a Hungarian Horntail appeared in the middle of the dragon zone.

 _Figures,_ Harry thought, walking up to it. _Oh well, time to remind the crowd that I'm not to be fucked with. Hope you're taking notes, Crouch, Dumbledore and whoever is taking care of Voldemort's back up plan..._

Harry conjured a cow to distract the dragon and walked to the edge of the field of rocks. In the distance, he could see the dementors still searching for Sirius. _Perfect_ , he thought. He brandished his wand and yelled,

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

"What an unexpected move!" Bagman commented, "I sure wonder what our resident posterboy of magical extravagance is cooking up!"

A massive stream of silvery mist shot out of Harry's wand, flying past the dementors and forming a massive cloud of ominous ectoplasm in the distant sky.

"Well," Bagman said, sounding perplexed, "I have never seen a patronus quite like this before..."

Harry kept firing more and more mist into the distance, until even the dragon lost its interest in the cow and started looking at Harry's patronus along with the rest of the crowd. At long last, the silvery cloud started coalescing into a massive shape, and the audience gasped as they recognized it for the king of all reptiles that it was.

No, it wasn't a dragon, nor a Tyrannosaurus. It was...

Godzilla.

"WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE," Bagman screamed. Dumbledore shot a Silencio at him.

The rest of the audience started panicking as well when it became clear that Harry was using his patronus to herd the dementors towards them. He stopped their advance after the dragon left its nest, making its way to the other end of the desert and curling into a ball.

"No kill like overkill," Harry said cheerily, sending the dementors away again and walking up to the nest to take the golden egg from it.

Crouch, Karkaroff, Maxime and Bagman were already holding up signs with the number ten on it, a 'please don't hurt me' look on their faces. Only Dumbledore seemed unperturbed and gave Harry a thumbs down, citing animal cruelty as a reason.

Harry turned his gaze towards the Horntail. Indeed, the poor creature was sitting around being all ball-shaped, probably flashbacking to the Great Dragon Civil War of 1576. He sent a few cheering charms at it.

* * *

That evening, after another wild party in the Gryffindor common room, Harry checked his magical mirror again, wanting to ask The Uncle for advice on how to find out the identity of a house elf's owner. However, he was unsuccessful once again.

' _You have no access to the afterlife'? These messages get more nonsensical all the time..._

Sighing, he decided to investigate the diary instead. He stopped short as he saw the name engraved on it: T.M. Riddle. The Uncle had told him all about _that_ name... Harry opened the diary and started to write.

 _What's up, Diarymort?_

 _Who is this?_ came the reply. _Ginny?_

 _Nope, I'm Harry Potter,_ Harry answered. There was a short pause.

 _Harry Potter... Well, isn't that hilarious. I've been wanting to meet you since Ginny told me about what you apparently did to my future self, and here you are, making things easy for me._

 _Try me,_ Harry wrote cockily.

 _Oh I will, no one stands a ch_

And just like that, the writing stopped. Harry waited a few seconds. Then he heard a voice. _Inside of his head._

 _"Why the hell is there another one like me inside of you?"_ the voice inquired. That had to be Tom Riddle's younger self.

 _"Argh! Who dares disturb my beauty sleep?"_ a second voice asked unexpectedly. Harry had no idea who it might belong to. He started battering Tom with his occlumency sword and shield, but he couldn't find the location of the other person.

 _"Lord Voldemort does,"_ Tom replied. _"I'm taking over."_

 _"No chance,"_ came the answer. _"I am also Lord Voldemort, and I was here first!"_

 _"I don't care who you are, you had your chance at possession. Begone, foul ruiner of plans! Avada Kedavra!"_

The mother of all clusterfuck headaches erupted in Harry's scar as a humanoid shade not unlike the Voldewraith from the Quirrell Incident escaped through his nostrils, shrieking all the way and dissolving in a cloud of black smoke. He felt blood trickle down his forehead as he fired up all of his back-up occlumency shields and hoped they'd hold. As reality faded away around him, he could hear Tom's cackling devolve into screams of panic...

He woke up a few minutes later, to the sound of a very annoyed voice in his head.

 _"You just had to make this difficult, didn't you?"_ Tom said.

 _"Wait, you're still in there?"_ Harry asked, alarmed.

 _"Yes, but without control,"_ Tom grumbled. _"I can't seem to go back to the diary, either. Where even am I?"_

Harry really wanted to break things right now. _Calm down,_ he thought, _there's more than one way out of this, it's just gonna take time..._ He tried not to imagine Dumbledore's smug face at the prospect of him being even more distracted. Then he addressed Tom again.

 _"You're currently on the outskirts of Occlumencyville, with no chance of entering the heart of the city,"_ he informed him. _"And you can bet I'll send all my occlumency street thugs to beat you up until I find a way to get you out of here, asshole."_


	7. Chapter 7

"I am succumbing to the deadly disease that is boredom!" Harry complained to Neville and Luna, who he was currently hanging out with. It would have been a cold winter day if Harry hadn't cast a warming charm on the entire area, melting all the snow and generally making for a very undecemberous atmosphere.

"Well, you could teach me how to fly a broom," Luna suggested. "I happened to be in the hospital wing on Broom Flying Day, spouting prophecies all morning, so I never got a chance to learn it."

"No magical person should ever be without broom flying skills!" Harry declared, summoning two school brooms.

"B-broom flying?" Neville stammered. "Oooh, I'm getting flashbacks..."

 _His first flying lesson must have been really traumatising_ , Harry thought. Indeed, the unfortunate Longbottom seemed to have reached his fear-induced evaporation point once again.

"Woe is me, for I am gaseous," he warbled, floating away with the wind.

 _I'll have to do something about that, one of these days_ , Harry thought. 'The wimpier the Longbottom, the more impressive his inevitable character growth', the old saying went, but sometimes, you just had to give a little push.

* * *

Half an hour later, Harry wondered how things could have gone so wrong so fast, as his eyes trailed after Luna, who was hanging from her broom with one hand, vertically flying upwards and yelling "I'm going to the staaaaaaaaaars!"

He was about to speed after her, when he was distracted by Hermione running towards him.

"Harry," she called, "I think I finally found a solution for your marriage problem!"

Harry immediately forgot about everything else and followed her into the library, where Ginny and Greengrass were already waiting. The latter had her arms crossed and was glaring icicles at him.

"How gracious of my prospective husband to finally concede to a face to face meeting after _three months_ ," she said.

"Well, to be fair, I was unconscious for one of those, and it's not like we aren't actively trying to keep any marriages from happening," Harry defended himself.

Hermione awkwardly cleared her throat.

"Uh, yeah well, about that..." she said. "I didn't actually find a way to get you out of the marriage, the idea I had will just keep you from breaking the polygamy law."

"Wait, hold on," Harry protested. "Are we just accepting this as an inevitability, then? Disregarding the fact that I have strong objections against the mere principle of a marriage contract, especially if it's forced on _me_ , how come you're so okay with it, Greengrass? Also, what about my affinity to fire magic? I don't want to melt you or anything. And-"

"Oh come off it, Potter," Greengrass interrupted him eyerollingly, "didn't your secret uncle teach you anything about pureblood culture while you were gallivanting around the globe? Marriages don't mean shit anymore, it's all about politics. We're not even required to live in the same house, or the same country for that matter. Hell, we're not even required to interact at all ever."

"Buh what," Harry said eloquently. The gears in his head started turning. He suddenly had the absurd mental image of himself and Greengrass half-assedly kissing each other on the cheek in front of a perplexed audience, before going back to their respective hypothetical romantic involvements and never talking to each other again. Dumbledore would be _so disgruntled._

"It's not like this is a permanent solution anyway," Hermione said. "I'm pretty sure assassinating Dumbledore would nullify everything, since he's the one behind it, but that's going to take you more than a year to pull off, and this is the best intermediary solution I could come up with."

"I'll just have to take down Dumbledore myself if you're not done by the time I'm graduating," Ginny muttered unhappily.

"Eh, fine, I'll take what I can get, as long as it's temporary," Harry said, mollified. "So what does your plan look like?"

Hermione gesticulated with a half-eaten book. Harry could make out the words _The Art of Homunculification_ on the cover.

"We are going to clone you," she announced.

"Oh hell."

* * *

After a one hour discussion on cloning logistics, their little group left the library and came across Professor Slughorn, who was waddling towards them, wearing a gas mask and carrying a fume-emitting cauldron.

"Sup-a-doodles, my noodles!" the walrus greeted them in perfect Oxford English. "Why don't y'all take a whiff of this lil' concoction for no dang reason!"

Harry karatechopped him in the face.

"Piss off, you Dumbledore shill, that's Amortentia," he said. "You'll have to try harder than that to get me to go along with that maniac's plans!"

Hermione shot him a look of the soon to be infatuated, even though she already was.

"You're so sexy when you're edgy, Harry," she complimented.

Harry put on a pair of sunglasses.

"Call me Miles Edgelord, baby."

* * *

That night, Harry had the strangest vision. He saw himself as the fugliest infant of all time, sitting on a throne inside of an expensive looking dining room. He was approached by Peter Pettigrew of all people.

"My Lord," Peter said grovellingly, "I have come back from rodentity to aid you in your quest for corporeality, and it was totally because I was magnetised by the inescapable draw of your greatness, not because Sirius Black is chasing after me!"

"Peter, you fool," baby Harry, or rather, Voldemort, said. "You're too late. I already have Barty working on it. However, merciful as I am, I will still let you rejoin me. Your rat form will provide excellent entertainment for Nagini, should she get bored."

Peter heaved a sigh.

"Fuck my life."

* * *

Harry woke up to the sound of Tom's voice in his head. The annoying junior dark lord had been mostly quiet since the start of their forced mental cohabitation, busy as he was dodging Harry's occlumency street thugs, although there had been a memorable incident during one of Slughorn's 'create your own potion' lessons, where he'd tricked Harry into making mayonnaise.

 _"I can't believe_ this _is what became of me,"_ Tom said. _"We already had a common enemy in Dumbledore, but I'm starting to think I'd be better off siding with you entirely. I'm sure I can find a way to make myself into the master soul somehow."_

 _"Assuming we even find a way to get you out of my head first,"_ Harry said.

 _"Actually,"_ Tom replied, _"your clone plan could help us with that. You'll just need to make an extra body. If you infuse him with enough of your magical core, I should be able to jump over."_

 _"I already want to make an extra so my main body doesn't have to marry anyone, though"_ Harry said, _"and I'm not sure if my magic can handle three clones...Also, I'm not exactly comfortable giving you a physical form, what with you being a dark lord and all."_

 _"Hey, screw you!"_ Tom whinged petulantly. _"It was only a harmless hobby! I don't know what went wrong with my future self, but I never had any plans of taking over Magical Britain. I could be having the time of my life, riding my favourite basilisk through the school's sewers, but instead I'm stuck in your fucking head because you're discriminating me!"_

 _"Did you just imply there's a basilisk in the building?"_

 _"I sure did,"_ Tom said. _"Its nest also happens to be the perfect place for illicit clone manufacturing, and I'll tell you all about it if you give me one of your spares to inhabit. Just underpower it if you're so suspicious, I'll take anything I can get by this point."_

 _"Fine,"_ Harry conceded. _"But in exchange, you tell me what you meant when you said there's another one like you inside of me. And of course, I'll still be watching you."_

* * *

"Feast thine incandescently azurine crystal marbles of glory upon my resplendent quidditch-induced abs," Draco Malfoy declared, puffing himself up like a pufferfish and ripping his shirt off.

"Oh Draco, thine orbs are beautiful like the Antarctic," Pansy Parkinson swooned. "If I look close enough I can even see the penguins. Yes, I'll go to the ball with you."

"Seven hells, they've all gone nuts," Harry whispered to himself. He'd successfully asked Hermione to the ball as soon as McGonagall had announced it, but he definitely hadn't made such a spectacle out of it, no sir.

"Mate, that's not impressive if she's your girlfriend," Ron told Malfoy. "Watch this, I'm trying out McLaggen's advice!"

He marched up to Lavender Brown.

"Ayyy gurl, stop staring at me with your pools, cuz I'm gonna drown!"

Lavender looked at him like he was some kind of alien. Little did she know, he was actually a humanoid magical trunk.

"Sure, whatever," she said. "This might be hilarious."

Harry facepalmed. _Et tu, Ronald..._

* * *

As Harry was still terribly bored, he decided to pay a visit to the duelling club. Lockhart immediately pounced on him like a rabid carnivore and dragged him onto the duelling platform.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," he shouted. "What an incredible, once in a lifetime event! I am beside myself with excitement. The one and only Harry Potter, second only to me when it comes to fabulous feats of adventuring, blessing us with his presence, what a-"

"Oh spare me the smarmalade and get on with it," Harry cut him off, "I didn't come here to get even more bored."

"Fine, fine," Lockhart said, "I'll convince you of the benefits of overzealous public verbosity another time. But for now, let the sparks fly! Draco Malfoy, to the stage please!"

A nervous but defiant looking Malfoy made his way onto the platform. After bowing to each other, the two wizards started trading spells, with Harry lowballing significantly, as ending Malfoy in a split second wouldn't exactly do anything against his boredom.

"Serpensortia!" Malfoy yelled, after he got tired of having his more conventional curses reflected at him by Harry's Mirror Shield.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry riposted, pointing his wand at the snake, which he then picked up.

"Time for unorthodox fighting methods," he said, hitting Malfoy with the snake. "Fear my poking stick!"

Malfoy, not wanting the audience to think him without fencing skills, quickly conjured and petrified a second snake and proceded to have a snakefight with Harry, much to the spectators' delight.

 _"Are you both completely demented?!"_ one of the snakes hissed.

 _"Sorry, it made sense at the time,"_ Harry hissed back. _"I'll make it up to you!"_

Malfoy dropped his snake, staring at Harry with wide eyes. The hall had gone deathly silent.

"Whoooops," Harry said.

"I always knew you were evil!" Zacharias Smith called from the audience.

Ginny threw a Bat Bogey Hex at him, making tiny replicas of Professor Snape crawl out of his nose.

* * *

The next morning, Harry's breakfast was interrupted by an owl dropping a suspicious looking package into his corn flakes.

"Well," Hermione said, "you told us Sirius is innocent, so this probably isn't him trying to kill you. Something seems really off about this package though, it's radiating dark magic..."

"I'll interrogate it," Harry said, "I am a parcelmouth after all."

He used several carefully dosed cutting charms to open the package without touching anything. Someone had sent him a copy of _Magick Most Evile_. The note attached to it said 'With love from your secret cousin Bartholomew'.

 _Nice try, Barty_ , Harry thought. _I really should tell Dumbledore about you, but he's never around these days, and I can't seem to find his office..._

He scanned the book with his MagiVision and got rid of the portkey enchantment on it with a nonchalant snap of his fingers. He then passed it to Hermione.

"I got you breakfast."

* * *

Harry kicked down the door to Moody's office, having decided that it was time to get rid of another annoyance. Before he could even start his monologue however, he found himself with a knife embedded in his upper arm. _Damn, Moody might be fake, but he's fast,_ he thought. Still, he didn't even flinch. He deflected an Eviscerating Curse, fired a full-body bind at Moody, pulled the knife from his arm and healed his wound, all in the space of less than two seconds.

"Congratulations, you have been thwarted," he declared. "Now tell me what the Dark Lord could have possibly wanted with my blood... Bartemius Crouch!"

Crouch started laughing so hard his magical eye popped out of his head. Growing impatient, Harry hit him with a mild Depressing Hex.

"The Dark Lord needs your blood for his resurrection ritual," Crouch said, still snickering. "And surprise! He already has it. The knife I threw at you was a portkey knife, teleporting your blood straight into my Lord's cauldron. You're done for, Potter!"

Harry stunned him and then just stood there in silence for a while.

"Welp," he finally said shruggingly, "to kill him, I needed Voldemort to be corporeal anyway. I should probably get-"

"Fear not, I am already here!" Dumbledore yelled, kicking the door down, Snape trailing after him with a vial of Veritaserum. "My portrait network informed me of everything that happened."

"...did you just repair the door so you could kick it down again?" Harry asked.

"I am a dramatic man, Harry," Dumbledore said gravely. "Do not question my theatrics. Well, we better get the interrogation going, I am confident the Ministry will be all over this!"

* * *

Standing in the same room an hour later, Harry was really glad he'd chosen the role of the silent observer instead of backing up Dumbledore's claims in front of Cornelius Fudge. The Minister most definitely hadn't been _all over this_. In fact, he'd panicked and started throwing peruvian instant darkness powder all over the place.

As the darkness slowly faded away, Harry and Dumbledore stared in shock at the scene before them. A dementor wearing a napkin was sitting on a chair, at a table, using a fork and a knife to eat what seemed to be pieces of Barty Crouch's soul on a bed of carrots and broccoli, covered in Béchamel sauce. He had a carafe of wine next to him.

"Well, Cornelius," Dumbledore said after he'd gone over his initial surprise, "I'm sure this was but a regrettable accident. Perfectly understandable, considering the gravity of the news I am bearing. Worry not, though, I have an eyewitness in the form of professor Quirrel, who will-"

"That's enough, Dumbledore!" Fudge cut him off blusteringly, making his way out of the room. "I don't want to hear it, you're clearly plotting something against me. Just wait until I get the toad on the affair."

"You're making a grave mistake, Cornelius!" Dumbledore called after him.

The Minister held his hands over his ears while running away.

"Give it up, Albus, you won't entangle me in your vines of malignance! LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALA."

Dumbledore turned to Harry and activated his Special Twinkle of Angriness.

"Do you even know what you have done, Harry?" he asked sharply. "You should have backed me up, he definitely would have listened to the hero of the Wizarding World! Now I will have to deal with his distractions while plotting against Voldemort."

"Are you serious?" Harry fired back. " _You_ 've been distracting _me_ from fighting Voldemort from the very start, and now you're complaining when it happens to you? You couldn't be more blatantly hypocritical if you tried!"

"I'll have you know that I studied the fine art of hypocrisy under our very own professor Kettlepot," Dumbledore sniffed. "There is most certainly nothing _blatant_ about it."

"Whatever," Harry said before Dumbledore could go off on one of his wacky old man tangents, "it's not like a Ministry person will be able to do much anyway."

"Oh Harry," Dumbledore sighed. "You don't know how wrong you are. I'll be sure to state my glee at your facial expression upon realising the truth as many times as I can get away with. I fear it will be the only enjoyable thing in my life for the next few weeks..."

The Headmaster jumped as he was poked in the shoulder by a skeletal finger.

"You have excellent cuisine in this fine establishment," the dementor said. "I'll be sure to spread the word."

Dumbledore grimaced.

"Please don't."

* * *

 _"Why the fuck didn't you tell me the basilisk was right there in the main chamber,"_ Harry thought furiously, managing to dodge a swipe from a massive tail despite having his eyes closed.

 _"I didn't remember, dammit!"_ Tom replied. _"I thought it was deeper in the tunnels. My memory is all fuzzy after spending so many years in that stupid diary. And open your damn eyes, parselmouths are immune to petrification!"_

"Never fear, Ron is here!" Ron said from somewhere to Harry's right, thereby confirming that he'd looked away in time. "My storage compartment is equipped for even the most unexpected emergencies!"

Harry opened his eyes just in time to see Ron throw a turkey at the basilisk, who ate it in one bite.

"Nooooo," the wondrous Weasley lamented, "how could you resist the gobble?!"

 _"Tell those maniacs to stop, you mediocre dunce!"_ Tom yelled inside Harry's head.

 _"Slytherin's Heir commands you to cease this nonsense and go back to your cave while visitors are around,"_ Harry hissed at the basilisk, conveniently remembering his many lordships The Uncle had mentioned to him before he'd sent him off to school. The basilisk turned around and went back to its dwellings in the deepest pits of Hogwarts.

"What the heck was all that racket?" Hermione said from behind them, apparently having finally made her way down the slide. She shot Harry an accusing look. "I thought this place was supposed to be safe!"

"Oh, it totally was," Harry lied, "we were just testing its viability as a duelling practice room. Right, Ron?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, exactly," Ron said, lamely shooting a few weak sparks from his wand. "Woohoo, Expelliarmus!"

"I don't even want to know," Hermione decided. "Do you have the biomass, Harry?"

"I got it," Ron said, producing three live cows from _somewhere_. Blimey, magical trunks sure were overpowered. And Ron wasn't even one of those fancy new multi-compartment trunks.

"Alright, Harry," Hermione said, "this is going to be challenging. You won't be able to dip these into your magical core, as they're too large, so we'll have to carve runes of permanent transfiguration into them, which you'll have to activate with your blood. After that part is done, we'll transfigure them into doppelgangers of you, and then you'll put copies of your memory into them like you'd do for a magical portrait."

"Let's do this," Harry said.

* * *

"That was the freakiest shit I've ever seen," Ron said an hour later, after they'd finished the last clone.

"I still don't get why you need that third one," Hermione said suspiciously, "or why you won't put your memories into it like with the other two."

"I'll tell you in due time," Harry promised. "Unfortunately, I need to do the next part alone, as it involves secret Potter Family Magick."

"We'll wait for you on top of the slide," Hermione said. "Don't take too long."

After they left, Harry addressed Tom.

 _"I am extending some major trust here, Tom, so don't fuck this up. I need you to wreak some havoc in Occlumencyville, to the point where it destabilizes my core. Blow up a few houses or something._ Don't _go to deep, or I swear I'll find a way to end you. On my count, three, two, one, go!"_

* * *

Another hour later, Harry made his way back up, followed by two of his clones, a very pissed off junior dark lord still in his head.

 _"I was so sure legilimency transfer would work!"_ Tom whinged. _"Why did I have to make horcruxes? Should have tried to make a Philosopher's Stone, dammit."_

"Bloody hell, Harry," Ron said, "what was going on down there? This sounded worse than what you were doing after Quirrell got you, and you almost fried the entire Hospital Wing back then."

"Trust me, you don't want to know," Harry replied, shuddering at the terrible memory. Sometimes, he wished his magical core wasn't so terminally fucked up.

"Harry, where's the third one?" Hermione asked.

"Still down in the Chamber," Harry replied. "He's, uh, waiting for his big moment. Don't worry about it."

As they left the bathroom, they ran straight into Dumbledore.

"Dear Merlin," the Headmaster said, a look of horror crossing his rapidly aging face, "Harry my boy, please tell me you didn't split your soul and animate homunculi with it to conquer Britain with a clone army."

"Don't worry," Harry reassured him. "These are my secret triplet brothers from Australia. They're visiting."

Dumbledore was at a loss for words for a moment.

"Well, you already have a secret uncle from Australia I knew nothing about" he finally said. "I suppose it makes sense."

* * *

The night before Yule, Harry had another Voldevision.

Peter was standing in front of a cauldron, dumping carrots, potatoes, onions and many other vegetables into it. The disturbing part was that Voldemort was standing in the middle of the bubbling monstrosity, singing in a horrid falsetto.

 _Beautiful soup, so rich, so green,  
_ _Waiting in a hot tureen,  
_ _Who for such dainties would not stoop._

"Flesh of the servant, willingly given," Peter said, cutting his hand off. His tears of pain dribbled into the soup and the stream of blood from his stump shot Voldemort in the eyes, but the Dark Lord didn't seem to care.

 _Beautiful soup, who cares for fish,  
_ _Game or any other dish?  
_ _Who would not give all else for two  
_ _Pennyworth only of beautiful soup?_

There was a massive explosion of smoke. As it faded, Harry could see that Babymort had become a snakelike adult.

"Excellent work, Peter," Voldemort declared, sampling the soup he was still standing in and making a large silvery spoon grow out of Peter's stump. "I am promoting you to head chef."

"You're most generous, my Lord," Peter said, looking at his spoon with resignation in his eyes.

Harry woke up and wondered if he should obliviate himself.

* * *

"Neville, my friend," Harry said, "I have noticed you are spending most of your days standing in the background, staring at walls or jumping into them. No ally of House Potter shall ever live in its shadow, doomed to be forgotten! Therefore, I am bestowing upon thee a gift that should improve your condition."

"M-Merlin, Harry, you didn't have to," Neville tremulated, twin waterfalls of bliss and hero-worship flowing from his orby eyes.

He opened the box and was bludgeoned by the divine fist of self-confidence, making him grow several inches, beards and bicepses.

"I FEEL LIKE THE FUCKING MAN," he shouted, his voice a resonant baritone. "Oh wow, this is great, I suddenly have all these ideas! See you later, I have work to do!"

Then he ran out of the Gryffindor Common Room, towards the greenhouses, not bothering with the door but instead jumping straight through the wall.

* * *

During the Ball, Harry and Hermione distracted most of the people present with their increasingly wilder dance, which ended with an esoteric swing move consisting of Hermione throwing Harry out of the window and diving after him. They landed in the garden perfectly unharmed.

"Excellent timing," Harry said, "the atmosphere was just about to get stuffy."

Hermione wasn't listening to him, staring past Harry's head.

"Harry, look..."

Harry slowly turned around, many premonitions of doom titillating his danger sense.

"So we meet again," he said quietly to the horror that had snuck up on them.

There were dozens of them, buzzing agitatedly, ready to go for the jugular. It was a swarm of wild mistletoes.

"Incendio," Harry shouted, setting fire to the hordes of greenery and poisonous berries. The swarm pounced.

"I refuse to die at the hand of a pack of nargles! Incendio! INCENDIO!"

"They're in my hair!" Hermione yelled. "Die, bitches!" She joined Harry in setting the buzzing abominations on fire. Soon, the entire garden was burning, but a double Aguamenti got rid of the flames before they could spread to the rest of the grounds.

Harry took a deep breath.

"Hermione," he said, "I am formally challenging you to a match of Tactical Tongue Chess."

* * *

"I knew you had whad it takes to be an above average monopoly player," Hermione said, reparing the bullet holes in her musketeer hat as the pair made their way back into the school building a few minutes later.

"I'd have conquered Canada too, if that pesky poltergeist hadn't interrupted the game," Harry declared, sheathing his katana.

Alas, their conversation was interrupted by a visitor of the worst kind: as the clocktower struck midnight, a woman in pink rode into the Great Hall on a sleigh pulled by dementors.

"Hohoho, students!" she cackled, "I am hereby officially outlawing nice things for mostly everyone, for as long as I deem necessary!"

And that, children, is how the Hogwarts Yule Ball of 1996 ended in tears.


	8. Chapter 8

"...and before we conclude this meeting, I have a final announcement to make," Voldemort said, sweeping his crimson glare across his newly regathered Death Eaters. "As you all know, I am infamous for the ruthless psychological warfare I wage on my enemies, crushing their morale with a level of skill even a dementor could only dream of. Therefore, I have decided to hit Potter where it will hurt him the most: his muggle family!"

A collective cheer rose up from the Death Eaters.

"Does this mean we get muggles to torture?" Rudolpho el Bizarro asked with the giddiness of a child ripping a fly's wings off.

"My dungeons have been out of use for too long," Lustrous Badliver said, tossing his hair. "They are craving the blood of innocents."

"As are my daggers!" Beatrice LeStrangle rallied.

"And my axe!" Waldo MacNair called from somewhere in the background.

"No, you fool," Voldemort chastised Rodulf the Rotund. "I'll give you a pass because I just broke you out of Azkaban, but I'll expect you to be better informed in the future. The boy hates his family more than anything, so I have decided to take the most logical step: I have recruited them!"

He ripped open the door behind him with a wandless summoning charm, and into the room marched none other than Vernon Dursley, wearing full Death Eater garb, armed with a drill. He was followed by Petunia and Dudley, both looking suspiciously like Inferi.

"Tremble before my might," Vernon eructed, the fanatical conviction in his voice hinting at an expertly cast Imperius,"I am Dursley with the Drill, and I will stop at nothing to get rid of the Freak-Who-Lived!"

Miles away, Harry Potter woke up, soaked in sweat and mentally shaking a fist at everything.

* * *

As the glamorous Gryffindor Goldenboy arrived in the Great Hall that morning, everything seemed perfectly normal at first. Multiple students were already sitting at various tables, eating pancakes with maple syrup like British magical children were wont to do. Ron was munching on several massive peanut butter jelly sandwiches at once and Hermione on the Daily Prophet, and a house elf was patrolling the hall, singing the praises of Albus Dumbledore.

However, the peace was soon disturbed by the rapid approach of an increasingly louder argument.

"Yes, he's fucking back, you amphibian maniac!" Professor Quirrell shouted, gesturing with his calcinated stumps. "I would know, I literally had him _in me_."

"Don't try to distract me with your lecherous implications, Quirrell," Umbridge replied, "they won't make your story more believable. Furthermore, I believe a detention is in order, maybe that will tamper your tendencies of spreading lies."

"Just ask Potter," Quirrell said exasperatedly, "he saved my life down there. He can confirm everything!"

 _Oh hell no_ , Harry thought, disillusioning himself, _it's too early in the morning to deal with this._

"Tut tut, trying to slander the Saviour of Britain, now?" Umbridge asked. "Could you sink any lower? No, young man, you will not get away with any of this. I'll make you write lines until you beg for the sweet release of death!"

"I don't have any fucking hands!" Quirrell yelled.

"Does she even have the authority to assign detention to a professor?" Harry whispered, invisibly taking a seat next to Hermione.

"She does as of the newest Educational Decree," Hermione whispered back. "Harry, this is really bad, she's been appointed to High Inquisitor by the Minister of Magic himself. Everyone knows what happened last time the Inquisition picked a fight with the wizarding world."

"I may have underestimated her," Harry admitted.

"At least we'll still be allowed to learn Defense once school starts again," Ginny grumbled. "I don't know how I'd deal with all this pink if couldn't fire spells at stuff..."

"I've been meaning to ask you that Harry," Hermione said, "how _did_ you convince her not to cancel Moody's class? She didn't seem to care when I told her we'd fail our NEWTs if we couldn't learn properly."

"I reminded her of the fact that we'd need all the skilled wizards we could get if we want to have a chance against Dumbledore's dark forces," Harry explained. "She really liked the idea of people taking him down with knowledge they learned at his own school."

"Hey guys," Neville called, coming back from the greenhouse he'd spent most of the last two weeks in, "look at my new invention! I call it the bomb flower. I got the inspiration from my latest accident in Potions."

He threw the cabbage he was carrying at a wall, causing a massive explosion.

"Pretty sure Vol- er, Dumbledore doesn't have a specialist in Herbology on his side. They'll never see it coming!"

"Well, at least one of us in enjoying himself," Ron said, morosely sweeping his gaze across all the educational decrees plastered on every wall and the pink guirlandes hanging from every ceiling.

"Just you wait," Ginny groaned, "I bet it's gonna be a hundred times worse once school starts again tomorrow. Umbridge announced she'd supervise classes."

"FUUUUUUUUUUCK," Harry screamed suddenly, blowing up a window with accidental magic and shooting a stream of lava from his eyes.

"What the hell?" Ron said.

"I just realised I spent all of the holidays nerding out over plants with Neville," Harry lamented. "I completely forgot I wanted to visit the goblins..."

* * *

"MALFOY!" Moody bellowed.

"Y-yes?" Malfoy stammered.

"Why the hell are you so nervous around me? Got something to hide?"

"What, n-no," Malfoy said, starting to fidget. Harry wondered if he was trying to compensate for the newly non-nervous Neville. "But, er, your impersonator might have transfigured me into a ferret and thrown me out a window. That kind of incident tends to leave traces."

Moody gave him a thoughtful look.

"Hmm. And you're still scared of me, even though I'm a different person?" he asked.

"Well... kind of?" Malfoy replied, looking unsure.

"Excellent," Moody said, "Five points to Slytherin."

"Uh, thanks, may I ask wh-"

"For CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Moody roared in his face.

Malfoy jumped into a wall, tripped over his robes and fell down in a heap, exposing his left forearm.

"Nice tat," Ron commented.

Harry took a look and had to stifle his laughter. Malfoy had a brand new scar fancily calligraphed into his skin. It said 'From Tommy Boy with love to my biggest fan'.

 _"Now that's just outrageous,"_ Tom commented in a scandalised tone.

"Screw you," Malfoy mumbled, "it's not what it looks like."

* * *

"Ah, Harry!" Gilderoy Lockhart called, jumping at Harry from behind a potted plant. "Just the man I was looking for! I would like to introduce you to a person who is very beneficial to have on your side. One has to start making political connections at a young age if one wants to succeed in life nowadays."

"Rita Skeeter?" Harry asked, fearing the worst.

"Surprise!" Umbridge squealed, jumping at Harry from behind Lockhart.

"How did that even work?" Harry wondered. Umbridge ignored him.

"Such an honour to meet you, Mister Potter," she simpered. "The Ministry has been informed of your valiant efforts in paving the way for an age without Dumbledore. We would like to formally extend an alliance. With your help, I'm sure we'll-"

"Wait, hold on," Harry interrupted, deciding he wasn't ready to sell out his dignity yet, "I don't know if I'm comfortable with that. After all, you're Deloris Umbridge, Fabled Slayer of Mudbloods. This might reflect badly on me!"

Lockhart facepalmed. Umbridge shot Harry a glare that could have petrified a basilisk.

"It's _Dolores_ , Potter."

"Sure thing, Doris," Harry replied, taking a page out of Ron's book.

"I can't take any more of this!" Lockhart exclaimed, walking away and leaving a trail of purple trilbies behind him. Harry could hear him grumble about wasted opportunities and the ignorance of youth.

"Oh, I see what you're doing," Umbridge said, her face lighting up like a goblin's before pulling a major scam. "I, too, have frequented the school of political haggling. If you want to go for the hard sell, you will do so in my office, during detention!"

"Now, now, Dorothy," Dumbledore intervened, appearing from the void in his usual dumbledorean way, "I'm sure we can solve this conflict in a nonviolent manner. If you'd just accept the fact-"

"DETENTION," Umbridge shrieked. She rummaged around in one of her pockets and pulled Argus Filch and his cat from it, unshrinking them in the process. "Filch, handcuff them!"

"Your wish is my command, Mistress," Filch hissed. "You've gone too far this time, Headmaster! You should have learned from the mistakes of the last poor sod who thought he'd gotten one over me! But we got him right back, didn't we, my precious? Tore out his eyes and ate his liver with a side of fava beans, yes we did..."

Neither Harry nor Dumbledore bothered with defending themselves against the handcuffs, it wasn't like they couldn't get rid of them easily.

"I'm going to be your _end_ , Dumbledore, mark my words!" Umbridge promised as their group arrived in her office.

"Ey, I dibsed first!" Harry protested.

"About that, Mister Potter," Umbridge said, having calmed down a bit, "I understand you're at a difficult age and going through your obligatory rebelling phase, but just think for a moment! Both of us are fighting Dumbledore, both of us are dreaming of a better world, devoid of the twisted lies of a foolish madman. With the full backing of the Ministry, Mister Potter, you could make Wizarding Britain into the utopia it deserves to be!"

"We might have different definitions of that," Harry stated.

"Why are you being so difficult?" Umbridge whined.

Harry took on an air of grave wisdom.

"Sometimes, Delirious," he said, "one has to choose between what is right and what is easy."

Dumbledore twinkled madly at that, but Umbridge wasn't impressed.

"Well, Potter, if you want to play hard to get, I'll bite," she grumbled, handing him a quill and and parchment. "You will write 'I will not fudge up the High Inquisitor's name' a thousand times. Maybe your puny rebellious brain will be more amenable to my ideas after it has been scrambled by bloodloss."

Harry took one look at the quill, snapped his fingers and started to write the lines in Umbridge's blood.

"Five points for creative spellwork," Dumbledore said merrily, trying to clap with the handcuffs still on.

"ARGH," Umbridge connipted. "LEAVE MY OFFICE, I'LL DEAL WITH YOU ANOTHER TIME."

* * *

Later that day, Harry found himself in the Headmaster's office.

"Mister Potter," Dumbledore said, "I have summoned you here to deliver the most important news you'll ever hear in your miserable existence."

"Do you have 'I must not tell lies' engraved on your forehead?" Harry asked, contemplating the old man's newest facial disfigurement.

"Indeed I do," Dumbledore replied impassively. "I have decided to leave it for now. Scars can come in handy, you of all people should know that. But this isn't what I wanted to discuss."

Dumbledore stared at Harry with his piercing high voltage cerulean eyes.

"Tell me, Harry, have you ever actually seen me perform deeds of great evilness, other than delaying the welcoming feast with my speech?"

The gears in Harry's mind started to turn. Quirrell had been possessed by Voldemort. Crouch was working for Voldemort too, so he couldn't blame his forced participation in the Tournament on Dumbledore.

"Aha!" Harry exclaimed. "Sirius Black! You knew he was innocent, and you didn't bother giving him a trial!"

"Harry," Dumbledore sighed, "I am powerful, but I am overworked, and it was much worse at the time. When the Ministry told me they'd tried him, I was simply to busy to check. Speaking of the Ministry, you might have noticed how they are denying the truth, trying to bury the last bastion of knowledge under an avalanche of bureaucracy, basically inviting Tom to overrun their sorry unprepared selves, torturing students and headmasters-"

"The marriage contracts!" Harry yelled desperately.

Dumbledore gave him a disappointed but unsurprised look.

"Now, Harry," he said. "I understand your secret uncle has trained you to be an outstanding wizard. The feats of magic you have accomplished so far were enough to qualify you as a grand sorcerer at the tender age of sixteen, and your potential is still growing rapidly. Truly, he has made you into a force to be reckoned with. But did he raise you to be smart? More importantly, _could_ he have raised you to be smart, even if he tried?"

Harry started sweating rivers. _Oh Merlin_ , he thought, _oh holy shit, he knows, he knows all about my second magical core and how it replaced nearly half of my brain, shit shit shit how could I understimate him so badly-_

Dumbledore's moustache started playing the strings of dramatic tension, using his beard as a violin.

"It is written on your face, Harry," he said, "your expression is all the admission I need. But don't you go and get an inferiority complex now, the sad truth is that most of the wizarding world is merely at your level."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, his face white.

"Harry, would you call me a convincing man?" Dumbledore asked seriously.

"Convincingly evil and insane, yeah!"

"So convincing," Dumbledore said with the air of a venus flytrap about to snap, "that no one ever bothered to check if I was telling the truth, not even you?"

"Oh my god..." Harry whispered, realising his mistake. "There never was a contract! You madman, you _manipulated_ me into thinking you were evil, distracted me with lies, all because you were scared my lack of brains would hamper your fight against Voldemort! And possibly because you wanted all the glory for yourself, come to think of it!"

"GAHAHAHA!" Dumbledore cackled, emptying an entire tray of lemon drops into the pitch black fang-adorned abyss that was his mouth. "Finally it dawns on you! That's right, Potter, I played the part of the Greater Bad by claiming to serve a twisted version of the Greater Good, all so I could surprise my enemies with my true form! And everyone _bought it_."

Harry remembered The Uncle's last warning. _Whatever happens, don't get fooled by Dumbledore's plot twists. My proof of his evilness is absolute._ As he'd already admitted not being the smartest tool in the shed, he decided to overplay his gullibility.

"NOOOOOOO!" he lamented.

"Now that the truth is on the table," Dumbledore said, calming down, "I hope you'll be amenable to work together, as you'll still be a necessary element during the final part of this twisted game of chess. I am assuming your oh so informed uncle told you about the prophecy and the horcruxes?"

"He did," Harry confirmed.

"But tell me, Harry, did he tell you that you were one of them?" Dumbledore asked.

"Nope," Harry said, aggressively poppppping the P at Dumbledore's face like it was really obnoxious popcorn. He wasn't technically lying, as he'd gotten the information from Tom instead. "Thanks for notifying me, though. I'll be right back."

He pointed his wand at his forehead.

"Avada Ked-"

"AAAARGH!" Dumbledore screamed, jumping over his desk and tackling Harry. "Are you completely insane?! Don't take such huge risks this early in the game! Merlin's _balls_."

"Haha, I made you swear!" Harry laughed, untangling himself from Dumbledore's beard. "If you'd paid more attention, you'd have realised I was pointing with the wrong side of my wand. That was for tricking me into making clones of myself!"

"Aha, so you did!" Dumbledore said triumphantly. Harry blushed.

"Whoooops."

Noticing the bearded one's growing scowl, he decided to clarify things.

"They're not horcruxes though," he explained, "I merely made autonomic extensions of myself using my Deus Ex Magical Core. They're currently exploring the castle for me. Speaking of horcruxes, the one in my head is gone, I figured out how to get the citizens of my occlumency mindscape to fire a killing curse at it."

Dumbledore narrowed his eyes at him, but didn't utter any disbelief.

"Well, I am relieved," he said. "Believe it or not, I didn't actually want you to die. But this doesn't change the fact that Voldemort has made more horcruxes. Being the amazing genius that I am, I already have a complete list of them, including most of their locations."

"That _is_ amazing," Harry agreed. "I'm sure you didn't use an extremely dark soul tracking spell that would hint at you being evil after all!"

"Indeed I didn't," Dumbledore said proudly, "I'm glad we can agree on this. Now, while collecting the horcruxes might seem like an easy task, it will actually be extremely difficult, as they are expertly protected. My sources inform me that only one of them is currently available to us, as it is hidden in the home of Voldemort's maternal grandfather. Unfortunately, the others are located in the Lestrange Vault in Gringotts and in your godfather's old house, respectively, both places we don't have access to at the moment. As for the diadem, I already took care of it."

He took a burnt diadem from his pocket and put it on his head, no doubt trying to unsettle Harry.

"Hmm," Harry said, thinking hard. "So we need to track down Sirius, get the goblins to acknowledge Voldemort's return so they give us special permission to visit the Lestrange Vault..."

"...and pay a visit to Marvolo Gaunt's old shack, yes," Dumbledore finished. "I suggest we take care of that last one as soon possible. Does tomorrow sound good to you?"

"Sure," Harry agreed, "it's not like I'd be learning anything new in class. Let's do this."


	9. Chapter 9

The next morning, as Harry was finishing his breakfast, he was accosted by a worried looking Ginny.

"Harry, have you seen Luna anywhere these past few weeks?" she asked.

Harry let his spoon drop into his cornflakes.

"Oh, _fuck_."

As fast as he could, Harry ran out of the school, to the place where he'd taught Luna how to fly a broom. Staring at the sky, he wondered if his Accio would reach into space. Distracted as he was, he forgot to pay attention to his surroundings and was run over by a massive black dog.

"Oh hey, Prongslet!" the dog barked. "Good to finally meet you outside of prison, I was missing our owl exchanges since I broke out."

"Sirius, how convenient!" Harry greeted the dog. Then he took a closer look.

"Something wrong?" his godfather asked.

"Sirius... are you in your human form?" Harry asked back.

Sirius laughed barkingly like the mad dog that he was.

"Oh, that," he said. "Don't worry about it, Pupslet. I've spent so many years as a dog before you and your uncle improved my cell that the difference between my two forms became irrelevant. It's like I have a notice-me-not charm on my humanity, no one will realise the truth as long as I don't talk to them or something similarly human. Just look at the people around you."

Harry looked around. There was no one right next to them, but he could see a group of students by the lake and a few faces looking out the windows. No one seemed to act like they'd just seen him talk to an escaped serial killer.

"Huh," he said, "magic sure is fascinating. Anyway, you have great timing, Sirius. Dumbledore and I will need access to your old house sometime during the next month. Apparently Voldemort hid something in there, and we need to destroy it to take him down."

Sirius grimaced.

"Yeah well," he said, "it's gotten much more dangerous out there since the Death Eaters have started being active again. They're mostly lying low, but the signs are there. I actually tracked you down to hide in your supertrunk for a while, but I guess I can go back to _that_ fucking place if you two need it. There will be so much cleanup..."

"Sorry about that," Harry said. "Don't worry though, if all goes well, we won't take too long, and-"

"Something wrong, Piglet?" Sirius asked when Harry didn't continue speaking.

"Sirius, don't say anything and act like a dog, my danger sense is tingling."

Sirius transformed into a grim, just as an approaching giggle could be heard from above. The dog and his godson looked up and lo and behold, Umbridge was floating down from the sky, dangling from an old-fashioned umbrella.

"There you are, Mister Potter!" she said as she landed in front of him. "I hope you didn't expect to get away that easily, I know you're smarter than that. I can't help but notice that you seemed to be talking to this dog just now."

"Would you believe me if I told you he was my secret dog from Australia?" Harry asked without much hope.

"Nice try," Umbridge said, narrowing her eyes at him. "You know, Potter, I'm starting to think you might actually be attempting to undermine the Ministry because you want to take down Dumbledore on your own. I'll have you know that Educational Decree Number Three Hundred Seventy-Six Thousand One Hundred and Forty-Five explicitly forbids the fanning of rebellious fires among-"

"I don't care about your stupid decrees, Delorean," Harry groaned, "I told you from the start-"

"It's _Dolores_ , dammit!" Umbridge shrieked, summoning her swarm of dementors. "Don't underestimate me Potter, did you forget I command a swarm of dementors? Did you forget I have the power to make the Headmaster write lines into his forehead?"

The dementors began swirling around her like a swarm of moths flocking to a source of light. Black clouds of doom started gathering above Hogwarts.

"I am no mere Ministry stooge!" Umbridge cackled, spreading her arms heavenwards and growing horns, "I am no mere human! _I am Revolution_ , Potter! _I am Utopia_ , wether you want it or not! You had your chance at glory, now it's time to harvest the fruit of your pathetic teenage rebelliousness! Crucio! Crucio!"

Harry hadn't expect Umbridge to lose it that quickly, or to have the sheer balls to crucify him in public, so he was caught completely unaware and didn't dodge.

"What the fuck even are you?" he asked teethgrittingly, his uncommon pain tolerance allowing him to speak while barely twitching under Umbridge's surprisingly powerful Cruciatus curse.

"I AM THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE, POTTER!" Umbridge exploded, sparks crackling around her fingers.

"Leave my Cubslet alone, bitch!" Sirius roared, tackling her and forcing her to interrupt the curse.

"Why the hell would you untransform for that, you crazy canine," Harry groaned.

"Sorry, Omelette, it's instinctual," Sirius said sheepishly.

"I knew it!" Umbridge crowed victoriously. "You were a criminal from the start, Potter! Ahahaha, get them, my pretties! Dinner is served!"

"It's fucking morning!" Harry yelled indignantly.

The dementors didn't care and started flying towards Harry and Sirius, who both ran away towards Hogsmeade.

 _"You know,"_ Tom said in Harry's head, _"I've only ever been a caster of the Cruciatus before, not a receiver. I think I might be slightly aroused..."_

Harry almost tripped.

 _"You probably feel like a tenth of it, you ghostly piece of shit!"_ he furiously thought back. _"Also, now's definitely not the time to disturb me more than I already am."_

"Harry, why the fuck haven't you unleashed Godzilla yet?" Sirius asked, ducking under a dementor's bony grasp.

"I dropped my wand when she cursed me," Harry replied. " And I can't use my secret technique when there's that many of them around, their effect will stack with my own!"

 _"Harry,"_ Tom said, _"I think I found a solution in your memories! Did you know Lord Voldemort is immune to dementors?"_

 _"How the fuck is that relevant?"_ Harry asked.

 _"Well, do you remember how you expelled my master soul from Quirrell? You need to do what you did with your mother's lovemagic, but with_ me _!"_

 _"Tom, you're a goddamn genius,"_ Harry thought, relief flowing through him. Since Tom was firmly lodged in Harry's second magical core, getting him out was a bit complicated.

"Harry," Sirius said, "I don't know what made you think sticking your entire arm inside your mouth while running away from a swarm of dementors was in any way appropriate, but I swear if I end up soulless because I tripped on my own puke, I'll find a way to haunt you."

"Mf'blrg, hb'grrrch," Harry replied, pulling a glob of ectoplasm from his head like you'd pull a strand of memories from your ear. He then stuck it into his main core and pulled it back out in the form of a phantomatic sword, which he swung at the nearest dementor, cleanly decapitating it.

"Weeee, I'm a knife!" Tom's voice yelled from the sword.

"Don't give up guys, reinforcements are on the way!" a voice called.

Harry looked up and saw Neville making his way towards them, flying a rake like a broom.

"Behold, the Longbottom Express has arrived and is planting the seeds of hope!" he shouted, throwing seeds around him from a little bag he was holding.

The grass under the dementors grew into a magnificent field of flowers, chasing the icy cold and the thunderclouds away. The wonderous plants also seemed to have other special effects, as the dementors started getting very agitated and Harry's mind was overwhelmed by a rush of happy memories.

"Accio Wand," he shouted exuberantly.

His wand didn't even take three seconds before it came shooting at him. Harry plucked it out of the air and summoned his Patronus while still swinging his sword with his other hand.

"That's right, go get them, Godzilla!"

"Hope will prevail!" Neville called from above, shooting massive amounts of magical seeds from what seemed to be a miniature canon mounted on his flying rake.

"What is this madness?!" Umbridge cried, terror audible in her voice. She was grabbed by the vines of hope and combusted under their touch like a vampire burns under sunlight. The surviving dementors didn't stay around for long after that.

"Bloody hell," Sirius said after he'd caught his breath again, "that was fucking _awesome_."

* * *

Later that evening, as Harry was standing in the Gaunt shack next to Dumbledore, his nervosity was increasing rapidly once again. It wasn't even his danger sense, but it was just obvious that _something_ would happen, the day had just gone too well so far. Sirius' extremely convenient timing, Umbridge being allergic to Neville's newest flower crossbreeding experiments, finally getting Tom out of his head and into a body by stabbing his spare clone with the Tomsword, a gruelling three hours of ward dismantling in this accursed hut, without a single injury... Yes, shit was definitely bound to go down.

Dumbledore got rid of the last layer of wards and walked into the living room of the shack, where a small box sat on a table.

"It's magnetising meeeee," he said, his voice full of terror. He robotically picked up the box, and Harry realised he wasn't doing any of this of his own free will.

 _Oh good_ , he thought, _apparently my premonition was about Dumbledore. I guess I'm okay with that._

"Harry, do something," Dumbledore ground out, opening the box.

"Ha, you really thought you'd convinced me," Harry said, watching with interest and inaction.

"Wait," Dumbledore said, "does this ring have the Resurrection St- AAAAARGH!"

"Holy shit!" Harry yelled, taking a step back.

Dumbledore began hovering in mid air, his customary twinkle turning into a ferocious thunderstorm and setting his beard on fire. His hand started withering, decaying into a crumpled black mess that travelled up his arm at a worrying speed. A disembodied girly voice rang through the shack.

"Seven dayyyys..."

Then, Dumbledore transformed into a goat.

"What," Harry said.

"Hehehe," the goat laughed, "nice try, Tom. Young Harry over here isn't the only one with special tricks up his sleeve, for my Animagus form is a talking, magically resistant goat! Once I turn back, my body will be perfectly healthy again!"

"You're implying I'll ever let you turn back," Harry said, pointing his wand at Dumbledore. "Animalockus!"

The goat fidgeted for a bit, then shot Harry an incredulous look.

"Now that's just ridiculous," it said. "That's not even a spell!"

"Sure is," Harry said, not entirely believing his luck yet. "It's a variant of the Homorphus spell I came up with during my free time, it locks people into their Animagus form. Wow, I can't believe I ended up getting rid of you in such an anticlimactic way!"

"Don't celebrate too early," the Dumblegoat advised. "My being unable to do significant magic in this form just means you'll have to let me transform back. Or did you miraculously find a way to destroy non-internal horcruxes that lies within your abilities?"

Harry just gave Dumbledore the smuggest look he could manage.

"You did, didn't you," the Goatmaster sighed.

"You're about to witness my secret technique," Harry declared. Then he transformed into his dementor Animagus form and kissed the horcrux, destroying it once and for all.

Dumbledore angrily wiggled his goatee.

"Absolutely _ridiculous_."

* * *

"Harry, is something wrong?" Hermione asked as they were sitting at the Gryffindor table the next day.

"Yeah mate, you're all giddy," Ron said between two sandwiches.

"Just wait," Harry snickered, "we might be about to witness Dumbledore's retirement."

Neville dropped the spoon he was feeding his newly-hatched flying venomous tentacula familiar with.

"Wait, you mean you actually found a way to rid us of him?" he asked.

"Well, I still need him alive because of the secret mission we started yesterday," Harry clarified, "but at least he'll- _ooooh good Godric_ tell me I'm seeing things _._ "

All four of them looked at the door behind the High Table, through which Professor McGonagall and a goat had just come in, the latter going straight for the Headmaster's seat. It was the Dumblegoat, merrily twinkling like everything was perfectly fine.

"Minerva, if you would," Dumbledore said, installing himself on his chair.

"Merlin help us all," McGonagall sighed, making an I-really-need-a-drink-right-about-now face and transfiguring Dumbledore's plate into a patch of grass.

The Headgoat started munching on his breakfast with gusto. After a few bites, he looked straight at Harry.

"You might have taken my humanity," he said, "but my loquaciousness remains."

"Dammit," Harry said dejectedly, "I should have known they'd let a goat be headmaster as long as it can talk..."

His misery was interrupted by Ginny joining their little group, slamming a Daily Prophet on the table.

"Guys, look at this," she said.

Harry obliged. The front page of the newspaper depicted none other than Luna Lovegood, standing on a rocky surface, giving a thumbs up, nothing but blackness behind her. The headline said:

 **HOLY SHIT**  
 **WITCH WALKS ON FUCKING MOON**

* * *

 _One month later..._

"Mister Potter, Mister Potter, just one more question please!" dozens of voices called behind Harry, as he ran away from the crowd.

"That's enough, dammit," Harry shouted, shoving his way through the hordes of reporters. "I've told you all you need to know, leave the rest to the explorers once they make their way down there, I have an appointment with the Headmaster right now and I don't want to miss it."

Somewhere in the background, Fleur was screeching at Bagman about sending a fire elemental into the ocean, and Viktor was pouting because no one cared about his shark Animagus form.

"Why does this shit happen to me," Harry groaned, "all I did was overshoot a bit because I underestimated my torpedo transfiguration's hydrodynamicity..."

"Well, they have a point you know," Hermione told Harry after he shook the last reporter off, "it's not everyday someone accidentally rediscovers Atlantis."

"This is just the worst timing," Harry grumbled, "Dumbledore took like one month to learn how to use magic in his goat form, and now that Voldemort is finally making his move and we're about to go after him, _this_ shit happens. I wouldn't be surprised if I get hounded by journalists _while_ I'm fighting him..."

"How do you know when Voldemort makes his moves anyway?" Hermione asked.

"Well, you see..."

* * *

 _Earlier that day, in Harry's dreams..._

 _"Nooo, Remus!" Sirius cried, as Remus Lupin was bodily thrown through the Veil by Bellatrix. "I'll kill you for this!"_

 _"Ha, you're welcome to try, cousin!" Bellatrix jeered, charging at Sirius like a raging aurochs._

 _"Reducto! Dammit, REDUCTO!" Sirius yelled, firing curse after curse at her, but they just harmlessly splashed off._

 _Bellatrix grabbed Sirius by the hand and started pirouetting like a mad dervish, swinging him around faster and faster._

 _"Choo choo, here comes the aeroplane!" she shrieked, throwing him through the Veil. Then she ran towards Hermione. "You're next, mudblood!"_

 _"Peter, my popcorn containment device seems to be empty," Voldemort commented from the sidelines, taking a sip of his coke._

 _"Coming right up, my Lord," Peter called over, waving his spoon._

 _"Wow, this is totally not a trap," Harry thought._

* * *

"Dumbledore!" Harry called as he entered the Headmaster's office. "The time has finally arrived, he's making his move. Although I sure wonder how he could even send me a vision with the horcrux gone."

"Obviously, he didn't," Dumbledore replied. "I think you might be a seer, Harry. Some people just get _all_ the special powers..."

Harry frowned in concern.

"You mean what I saw is actually going to happen?" he asked. "It was pretty grim..."

"I wouldn't worry too much if I were you," Dumbledore reassured him, oneiric omens don't tend to be accurate. It probably just means that it's time for us to play our part. Tell me Harry, where did you see him?"

"Well, we were in the Department of Mysteries, I think. I remember reading there was a Veil down there."

"Oh, that makes sense," Dumbledore said, "the prophecies are in the Department of Mysteries. We'll just make our way to the Prophecy Hall in the least inconspicuous way possible and I'm sure Tom will follow us as soon as he gets wind of it. Which will be very soon, if my intuition isn't lying to me. He didn't make any waves during the month I took to adapt to my new form. My theory is he used my downtime to infiltrate the Ministry with as many of his agents as possible. Moving on, did you get rid of the locket already?"

Harry rolled his eyes with fond exasperation.

"Yeah, Sirius fiendfyred the whole house. I have absolutely no idea how he survived it, but the locket is definitely gone."

"Excellent," Dumbledore said. "In that case, we'll get started this evening. In the meantime, have fun answering more questions!"

"Wait, what?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore wiggled his horns and the doors to his office opened, letting a veritable deluge of reporters in, who immediately proceeded to swarm Harry.

"Curse you, old man!" Harry yelled as he was swept away by the mindless hordes...

* * *

"Your business?" the Ministry nightguard asked Harry.

"Uh, Harry Potter, here to show his goat the Prophecy Hall. He's, er, a very curious goat."

"Whatever, you can pass," the guard said, staring at nothing with empty eyes.

"What a farce," Dumbledore muttered, "I've been telling them for decades that they needed to update the master/stranger protocols, now look at the state of this place..."

"Aha, here you are, Potter!" a sibilant voice called from behind Harry.

Harry turned around and found himself face to face with Voldemort and a dozen Death Eaters.

"Now just wait a fucking minute," Harry protested, feeling overwhelmed, "we haven't even taken the lift yet! How could you get the message that fast?"

"Not relevant, Harry," Dumbledore said, pointing his horns at the Death Eaters. "Fight now, ask questions later!"

"Hahaha, a real wizard always arrives early!" Voldemort said.

"But this is completely ridiculous," Harry complained, "why would you attack me here in the atrium where the aurors can easily pop in from everywhere? Is this all staged or-"

" _Not. Relevant_ ," Dumbledore interrupted him, dodging three killing curses and firing a wandless reductor from his horns.

"I thought you needed to channel magic through your hands for wandless magic," Harry wondered.

"Ah, but I'm doing motionless magic, which doesn't employ the waving motions that you need for wandless magic," Dumbledore explained. "Humans usually do it by using their nose as a focus, but thankfully horns are even more practical."

"I guess we won't have to fear any motionless magic from snakeface over here, then," Harry mocked, conjuring a swarm of angry elephants and sending them at the Death Eaters.

"I have alternatives at my disposition, Potter!" Voldemort called over, winking at Harry, who gagged.

The noseless menace used this distraction to fire a volley of killing curses at his opponents, but Harry merely changed into his dementor form, swallowed them all, transformed back and fired them at Lucius Malfoy through his eyes.

"Who's eating death now, assholes?" Harry yelled.

Lucius just deflected the curses with a contemptuous flick of his hair.

"Ha, only a foolishly foolish fool would think he could intimidate me this way!" Voldemort declared. "I AM VOLTEMORT, LORD OF LIGHTNING."

"Oh, this is bad news," Dumbledore said, conjuring a massive shield in front of him and Harry.

"Tremble before me, maggots!" Voldemort cackled, shooting lightning from his eyes into every direction. Statues were decapitated, windows blew up, cracks went through the wall and debris fell from the ceiling in spades. The herald of noseless nefariousness started glowing bright blue and raised his hand, summoning a tornado of debris, which he sent crashing against Dumbledore's shield.

"Nothing resists the power of erosion!" he proclaimed.

"What in Merlin's name is going on here?" a voice called.

Harry glanced over to the fireplaces and breathed a sigh of relief: the aurors had arrived. They wasted no time and immediately started pelting the Death Eaters with curses.

"I'm not leaving here without taking Potter's life," Voldemort shouted. "Avada Kedavra!"

"Bombarda Ultima!" Harry yelled.

A cage of golden lightning formed between their wands, and sweet phoenix muzak rang through the Ministry. A massive stag errupted from Harry's wand and charged towards the Dark Lord.

"Vengeaaaance!" it roared in James Potter's voice, stabbing Voldemort straight through the thorax.

"Argh!" Voldemort screamed. "'Tis but a flesh wound! I'll be back, Potter, mark my words!"

He snapped his fingers, disapparating his entire group straight through the wards.

"But he can't be baaaaaack!" a voice wailed from behind Harry.

Several windows shattered. Harry turned around and was confronted with the unseemly sight of Cornelius Fudge in pink pyjamas.

"Did Cornelius just do accidental magic?" someone asked.

"Hmm, I think he might have done that with his voice..."

* * *

As Harry finally swaggered through the front door of Gringotts the next morning, he fervently hoped he wouldn't faint from overexcitement. Now that Riddle's return was official, they'd get access to the horcrux for sure, no sane goblin would want Wizarding Britain to fall under the Dark Lord's reign. Harry cast a Sonorus on himself.

"MAY YOUR GOLD FLOW FOREVER!" he shouted into the crowd.

The effect was immediate.

"Urglegurg's beard," a goblin cried from behind his desk, bursting into tears, "He's arrived! Finally!"

Doors were kicked open all over the place and Harry found himself assaulted by a massive flood of crying goblins, every single one of them trying to hug Harry's legs. Goblin guards swarmed the hall and ushered the confused humans out. Shouts of "we're closed, we're closed, special holiday" could be heard from every direction, along with "Rorrglegard's nose, it's happening, it's happening!"

"I'll name my children after you!" a goblin called from the wailing crowd. " _All_ of them!"

"Hell, I want you to carry my children!" another one screamed.

"Excuse me?!" Harry protested.

Things got even wilder when a goblin centurion rode in on a giant chicken.

"He's arrived!" he roared. "Griphook, get the cup! Gripclaw, fetch General Grippington! Gripgrip, message the king!"

"Good heavens, Harry, what have you done..." the Dumblegoat sighed.

He was placated after a goblin named Gripfang brought him a dish of steamed deluxe grass served on a golden plate.

A huge goblin wielding a broadsword marched towards Harry.

"In the name of Urg the Bloodthirsty, I declare thee Honorary Knight of the Goblin Nation!" he bellowed, the mad fire of fanaticism glimmering in his beady orbs.

"Bring the wine, bring the wine!" another goblin shouted from Harry's left. The impromptu messiah of the Goblin Nation accepted a goblet of wine from a small bearded goblin, downing it in one swig. Then he changed into his dementor form and chugged the soul right out of Hufflepuff's Cup, which another goblin had brought him on a silver platter.

"Make way for the king!" someone shouted.

The back wall of the Gringotts Atrium exploded as a carriage pulled by a huge griffin rode through it.

"Harry Potter!" King Ragnok boomed as he exited the carriage. "What an unprecedented honour to meet you! Please accept this small welcoming gift from our glorious Nation!"

A dragon flew into the hall from behind the carriage, landing obediently in front of Harry.

"Oh my god, _yes_ ," Harry erupted. "YES, YES, YES, this is the best day of my life!"

He grabbed Dumbledore by the horns and jumped onto the dragon's back, immediately taking to the air.

"Go on, my trusty steed!" he yelled. "Victory will be ours! Goodbye my friends, I'll be sure to visit you regularly!"

Harry flew higher and higher into the air, still holding Dumbledore by the horns and leaving a crying and waving crowd of euphoric goblins behind him.

"Hahaha, this didn't disappoint," he shouted, "AHAHAHAHARGH! FLAP FLAP FLAP, I'M A FUCKING DRAGON RIDER!"

"Good lord..." Dumbledore sighed.

* * *

As they landed in front of Hogwarts half an hour later, Harry's glee ebbed away as he was distracted by a most spectacular sight. A magical vine seemed to have grown on the school's grounds, all the way up to the sky. Looking up at it, Harry couldn't make out an end. His friends were already waiting for him at the base of the plant, in the company of Tom, who was pretending to be Harry's secret cousin from Australia.

"Whatever this is, I don't have time for it," Dumbledore said, trotting off towards the castle. "If anyone looks for me, I'll be in my office, waiting for the airsickness to wear off."

"Neville, what did you do?" Harry inquired.

"I have no idea, Harry," Neville replied. "It's one of my magical beanstalks, but they're supposed to stop at twenty metres. I designed them as portable surprise ladders, none of them have ever done this before..."

"Guys, do you hear this?" Ron asked.

Everyone shut up. An increasingy louder noise could be heard from above, sounding suspiciously like "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". A small dot appeared somewhere in the distance, sliding down the vine. As it came closer, it became recognisable as a human shape. Finally, the person landed in front of their little group. It was Luna.

"Hi everyone!" she greeted them happily.

"How the heck did you land on the moon of all places?" Ginny asked.

"More importantly, how did you manage to send pictures of yourself from up there?" Hermione wondered.

Harry took a closer look at Luna and noticed her stay in space had changed her appearance. She seemed to be surrounded by a halo of ominously flickering spatial distortion and her eyes had gone entirely black, looming even more threateningly than Snape's twin tunnels of terror. Most striking however was her face, which seemed to have taken on strangely insectoid traits.

"No time," Luna said apologetically, ignoring her friends' questions and agitatedly clicking her mandibles against each other. "The Great Snorkack in the Sky has blessed me with a vision of the future, and I'm afraid I bear most dire news..."


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note**  
Aaaand we're done, holy shit. My mindset when writing this was 'let's just cram a ton of stuff into a short timeframe, not develop any of it and be done with the whole thing in like five days', so imagine my surprise when it took almost a month and ended up being over 30k words. Oh well, it was worth it.

Thanks for reading and reviewing, (hopefully) until next time!

* * *

"I'm going to need a pensieve," Luna stated, taking a small bottle from her pocket. "Showing you my memories of the vision will be easiest."

"No problem," Ron said, producing a pensieve from his storage compartment. "As always, I'm equipped for everything!"

Luna opened the bottle and handed it to Ron.

"Thanks mate," he replied, instinctively chugging it.

Luna blinked, started raising her right hand, opened her mouth, closed it again and let the hand fall back down, looking unusually stumped while Ron convulsed on the floor, tripping balls.

"Well," she finally said, pouring her memories directly into the pensieve, "I guess it's a good thing I made copies instead of a full extraction."

The group minus Ron collectively dunked their heads into the stone basin, which somehow had room enough for all of them, and took a trip to the past...

* * *

 _"I don't want to kill you, Gellert, but I will if I have to!" Albus Dumbledore threatened, standing on top of a mountain of debris and collateral casualties. "If you surrender as peacefully as you still can, this will defiantly be easier for everyone involved."_

 _"Friss mein Ding Dong Nudel, Albus," Grindelwald ripostated definitely, preparing to fire his next volley of spells. He was bleeding from multiple cuts and missing three fingers and half an ear, while Dumbledore didn't have a single scratch._

 _"Not today," Dumbledore replied. "You've gone too far."_

 _"I guess I'll just have to up my game then," Grindelwald spat, transfiguring a nearby house into an active volcano and sending the lava at Dumbledore._

 _"So be it," Dumbledore said, sending the volcano snot right back at his ex in the form of a giant burning spear._

 _He followed it up by firing a massive stream of undefined magick in its rawest form at Grindelwald. The air crackled and sizzled around them as Dumbledore's special Light Lord technique caused a temporary distortion in the fabric of reality._

 _"You're not ready for my final gambit!" Grindelwald shouted, "EXPLODO SANITAS!"_

 _"NOOOOO, you madman!" Dumbledore cried as Grindelwald's spell flew straight into his cloud of undiluted magick. "Do you want to end the world?!"_

 _"It's a better option than losing to you!" Grindelwald yelled._

 _Dumbledore's magical cloud fused with Grindelwald's spell and caused an explosive tornado that destroyed the area in a radius of at least one kilometre. Tendrils of magic struck the two wizards right into their heads, knocking them out. The storm raged on for about five more minutes, before dissipating. An entire town and every single lifeform in it, destroyed by one duel..._

 _"Ooooh, I feel strange," Grindelwald groaned as the both of them woke up. "Where am I? What are you doing here, Albus? What happened?"_

 _"I can't seem to remember, Gellert," Dumbledore answered perplexedly, stroking his beard._

 _"I don't like it here," Grindelwald said, looking at the newly-created wasteland around them. "Let's go visit Aunt Bathilda, I could do with some tea."_

* * *

 _"Did_ you _get any of Auntie's explanations?" Grindelwald asked later that day, as they were sitting in Dumbledore's living room._

 _The latter scrunched up his face._

 _"Nope."_

 _"Well,_ I _got that you were being a mean bully because I'm better at playing dark lord than you, so you went and destroyed everything I'd built up over the years," Grindelwald grumbled. "Dammit, I don't want to start from scratch, it was sooo tedious!"_

 _"I'm so sorry, my love," Dumbledore cried, "I don't know what got into me! But worry not, I already thought of a convoluted plan that will keep us from getting bored ever again!"_

 _Dumbledore started explaining, and soon, the house was filled with the gleeful giggles of amorous sixty year old men..._

* * *

 _"Ha, this is your end, Dumbledore!" Voldemort declared, victoriously brandishing Dumbledore's wand. "I don't know what you were trying to achieve by luring me into the Room of Death, but it sure makes it easier to get rid of you once and for all! How nice of you to stand with your back to the Veil, now I'll just-"_

 _His monologue was interrupted forever as a disillusioned Grindelwald summoned him through the Veil from the other side, with Dumbledore skillfully dodging at the last moment._

 _"Haha, you were right Albus," Grindelwald laughed, "this guy was a total amateur. I can't believe he fell for our trap!"_

 _"I didn't even need my real wand to fight him long enough to be believable," Dumbledore snickered. "Now we'll just take advantage of the fact that we're obscenely powerful and brew some permanent Polyjuice Potion. Then, you'll be Voldemort and I'll be your arch-nemesis! Goodbye boredom!"_

 _An obnoxious amount of mad laughter rang through the hall for many minutes after that._

* * *

 _"Gellert," a much older Dumbledore said, "we need to shake things up. We're both getting tired of Britain, and the populace is starting to get suspicious of my eccentricity."_

 _"What do you have in mind?" Grindelmort asked._

 _"Well, I faked a prophecy about a child that will have a downright grotesque amount of power if my arithmantic calculations are correct. This child will be your new nemesis and end up killing you. Twice! We'll have to sacrify some of your horcruxes to make it extra convincing. Once you're dead for the second time, I'll arrange for Severus to kill me for reasons I still need to think of."_

 _"You think he'll do it?" Grindelmort asked curiously._

 _"Oh, he'll do more than that," Dumbledore said machiavellistically, "he'll do our resurrection rituals too! I already have a scheme in mind to ensnare him in several unbreakable vows. Once that is done, we'll be able to start anew somewhere else, preferably on the other side of the planet."_

 _"Excellent," Grindelmort said. "The adventurer in me longs for new horizons! And no one will ever suspect our new identities' joined horcrux to be hidden in the Hogwarts Sorting Hat!"_

* * *

"Oh my god," Hermione said once they'd left the pensieve, "you mean, all this time, Dumbledore was just insane because both he and Grindelwald got hit by the latter's Permanent Batshit Insanity Curse?! That's horrible!"

"No shit," Neville said, "I feel kinda bad for him now."

"Indeed," Harry said, dramatically closing his eyes like a man who knew what he had to do and was determined to do it, but didn't like it, "this is quite the depressing situation, since this particular curse is utterly irreversible. Not to mention the fact that his insanity has led Dumbledore to commit many flat out impardonable crimes. I see no other solution than putting him out of his misery."

They all spent a minute in silence in honour of Dumbledore's former greatness.

"You know," Tom said, "I want to be angry at those bastards for killing my other self, but in the end, this is actually the best thing that could have happened to me. I just got promoted to master soul status!"

Everyone stared at him. Tom looked at Harry.

"...let me guess, you didn't tell them anything," he said.

"Not yet," Harry said. "Guys, this is the teenage version of the real Voldemort, he was in Ginny's diary. Tom, you already know who they are."

"Oh come on," Tom said, noticing the alarmed looks he got, "like I already told Harry, it was just a harmless hobby! Yes I wanted to be the most powerful wizard in Britain, but the only person I ever wanted to kill was Dumbledore, to take his place! And he was already insane at the time so I was totally in the right. _I_ never had plans to take over the world or to cause the deaths of hundreds purely for entertainment!"

"I don't know if I can trust a guy who named himself Voldemort," Neville said, "it just sounds so... evil."

"Pah, you're just scared of the name because you're associating it with that imposter and his crimes! It's just a silly name I came up with back at the orphanage, when we had alphabet soup that one time..."

"Didn't you make horcruxes?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

Tom started fidgeting a bit.

"One horcrux!" he corrected. "And that one was an accident. How should I have known the stupid basilisk hadn't been told by Slytherin not to look at students? It's important to know that I always had a pretty unstable soul because of something my mother did back when she conceived me or something, according to my research, so when Myrtle died and I felt my soul splitter, I was like, 'come on man, how could I _not_?' I'd have been a fool to waste an opportunity like that."

"Anyway, this _does_ explain why everything was so convenient," Harry mused. "In the end, I was just playing my part in their entertainment."

"Hm, our side had some majorly convenient events fall into our lap too, though," Hermione said, visibly grinding her mind's gears. "Luna's visions, for example..."

Harry was suddenly overcome by suspicion.

"Oh hell, I think I know who might be behind this. After all, there's only one wizard in the world who's more powerful than I am. Luna, was the Great Snorkack humanoid per chance?"

"He sure was," Luna confirmed. "I just assumed he'd hidden his horns because he was ashamed of their crumpliness."

"Did he look and sound like an older and wiser version of me?" Harry continued his questioning. "Did he wear an ominous looking ring and wield an ominous looking wand?"

"He did," Luna replied. "That's impressive, Harry! Did you open your Third Eye, too?"

"I think I actually did," Harry replied, "but I didn't even need it for this. I knew it! It just makes too much sense."

"Harry, what the hell are you talking about?" Ginny inquired.

"Probably about me," someone said from behind them, dropping their invisibility cloak.

It was... The Uncle.

"I guess it's time to come clean," The Uncle said, "for the final showdown seems to be approaching rapidly. Harry... I am you from another reality."

"You're what from what?"

"You heard me," The Uncle said. "I kind of died in my original world, but I got better. Dispensing knowledge is the only way I'm allowed to interfere with other realities though, that's why I had to train you to be the best there ever was."

"Why this particular version of me, though?" Harry wondered.

"Because this continuum's Dumbledore is an insult to Dumbledores everywhere," The Uncle replied darkly.

"How in the world does one get to become a dimension traveller after dying?" Hermione inquired.

"No time to answer that," The Uncle said, "as usual, the enemy is acting fast."

He pointed out the window. Harry had a look and gasped. He'd anticipated the final battle to be difficult, but _this_ easily exceeded his expectations. Grindelmort had gathered a massive army of followers, there were hundreds upon hundreds of them marching up the hill. Not all of them were Death Eaters either, quite a few of them looked like new recruits from the mainland. A group of former Grindelwald followers were marching at the back, drunkenly waving german flags, and the massive lumbering shapes of several giants could be seen approaching from the forest. A swarm of dementors came flying from above, and the approaching warcries of countless vampire pirates could be heard from the ocean.

"ONWARD, TO GLORYYYYYYY!" Ginny screamed, grabbing a broom and flying out the window. "INCENDIO, INCENDIO!"

"Have you gone completely fucking nuts?!" Hermione called after her.

"Welp, I'll go watch from the sidelines since I'm not allowed to do anything," The Uncle said, flying after Ginny without bothering with a broom.

He was followed by Neville, who was carried by his flying venomous tentacula.

"Time to test my new powers," Luna said, warping away through her halo of black holes.

"They've all gone crazy," Hermione lamented.

"Where the fuck did Tom go?" Harry asked. He was distracted by a groan from his right.

"Ugh, Harry's balls, what the hell was that?" Ron asked, recovering from his memory poisoning.

"What do you mean, my balls?" Harry asked indignantly.

"Well, since you're the next Merlin and all, I figured it was about time someone started swearing on your body parts," Ron said. "Don't bother explaining everything; apparently, drinking the memories has the same results as watching them, it's just... more intense."

"I hope you two aren't planning to charge straight into battle like the rest of these maniacs," Hermione huffed, "someone needs to get rid of the horcrux in the Hat after all. Now would be the best time, Dumbledore seems to be distracted."

She pointed out the window. Harry had another look and indeed, the entire Hogwarts staff appeared to have gathered in front of the castle, with the Dumblegoat already merrily galloping around among the Death Eaters, firing reductors from his horns and twinkles from his eyes.

"Alright, let's waste no time," Harry decided. "To the Headmaster's office!"

* * *

"Accio Sorting Hat!" Harry shouted after having blasted his way into Dumbledore's lair of depravity. An infernal cacophony came from upstairs as the Hat was ripped straight through the Headmaster's candy cupboard and came tumbling down into the office on a tidal wave of lemon drops.

"Kiss me Potter, I'm a princess!" the Hat called.

Harry obligingly changed into his dementor form and proceeded to have a souldestroyingly voracious makeout session with the Hat, who transformed into a lady in white.

"Hark, my saviour," she said, "thou hast conquered the heart of Lady Hogwarts."

"Uuuh, well," Harry said, taking a step back, "this is awkward. You see, we may not have demonstrated any of our affection on-screen, but I actually kind of started dating this bookworm over there not too long ago."

"Damn," Lady Hogwarts said, reverting to her hat form. "It was worth a try. Oh well, guess I'll go back to sort children in my grumpy old man voice. Thanks for getting rid of the parasite, my oaths of secrecy kept me from telling anyone."

* * *

"What the unholy fuck, this is the most disorganised mess I've ever laid orbs upon," Harry said after he'd made his way onto the battlefield. Somehow, the battle of Hogwarts had turned into a giant free-for-all. People and creatures of varying degrees of sapience and sentience were running, flying and getting exploded all over the place in a massive salad of chaos.

To his right, Professor Lupin was rushing at Grindelmort's soldiers, swinging his fists and yelling "Stupefy" with each punch, although they seemed to be rather more lethal than a simple stunner.

"That's thirty-one, Longbottom!" The crazy werewolf yelled over the battle sounds, "you're falling behind!"

Neville swung his shovel, cleanly bisecting three Death Eaters in one fell swoop.

"Thirty-two!" He shouted. "You're gonna need to do better than that to impress me, old man!"

To Harry's left, Luna was busy distorting space and possibly other parts of reality around a group of trolls, producing a demonic laugh that would have made Santa Claus jealous.

"From this day onward, you may refer to me as Luna Lovecraft!" she told the terrified creatures.

"Ugh, whatever, I guess I'll just go with the flow," Hermione sighed, conjuring her trademark battle axe and charging at the crowd.

"Is that Ginny?!" Ron exclaimed, pointing towards the ocean.

Harry looked over at the Sea of Hogwarts and saw that indeed, Ginny was currently fending off a fleet of Rotfang vampires, producing a neverending wave of fire from her wand while one of the squid's tentacles swung her around like a flamethrower.

"Looks like fun!" Ron said, running towards the squid. "It's time for the famous Fiery Weasley Temperament to shine! INCENDIOOOOOO!"

Harry started fighting his way through the crowd, looking for Grindelmort. Soon, he was completely lost, and the fact that someone had freed Neville's fanged carrot prototype didn't make things easier, as the pesky buggers weren't yet at the stage where they could distinguish between friend and foe.

 _Wait, I'm a fucking idiot,_ Harry thought, _I have a dragon!_

"Hey, assholes, give me some space!" he yelled, "my dragon needs to land!"

"Coming right up," McGonagalls voice answered from somewhere. Seconds later, the enemy fighters around Harry were transfigured into fish and started suffocating.

"YARRR, MATEYS," Captain Hagrid roared, shoving a handful of them into his mouth,"TONIGHT WE DINE ON TROUT!"

Harry's dragon landed next to him and the glorious Wizard of Destiny took to the air, flying in an outward spiral pattern and scanning the crowd for Grindelmort with his expert Seeker's Eye.

He spotted him near the ocean, leading a group of Death Eaters towards the vampire pirate ships on a conjured wooden bridge.

"Yarrr, me fellow purebloods," the mad Dark Lord yelled in a bad imitation of Hagrid's pirate accent. It be time to take to the seas, our undead allies requested a magical flying upgrade for their ships, arrrr!"

Harry was about to fire a piercing curse at Grindelmort, when the latter suddenly unshrunk a broom, took to the air, vanished the bridge and transformed into a laughing pink-haired witch while flying away. The unfortunate Death Eaters fell into the ocean, where Viktor Krum's shark form made short work of them.

"'Arry, what are you doing out 'ere?" someone said next to him. It was Fleur, in full bird form, her newly hatched pet dragon buzzing around her.

"Oh hey Fleur," Harry greeted her, dodging a stream of fire from the squid, who was now wielding two Weasley flamethrowers. "Just looking for Voldemort. Where's the rest of your dragons?"

Fleur blushed.

"Well, I got really 'ungry that one time..." she mumbled.

Harry decided now was not the time to comment on veela feeding habits, as not even his fabled Allure Immunity™ would save him from that one. Looking back towards the castle, he scanned the crowd for anything particularly eyecatching. He spotted Neville, holding on to a tuft of a giant's hair and emptying a barrel full of his potato grenades into the beast's ears. Then he saw it, in the background: Grindelmort himself was riding up the hill, sitting in a massive, soup-filled cauldron on wheels pulled by six cockatrices and a still imperiused Vernon Dursley riding an enchanted jackhammer.

"Soup of the evening, beautiful souuuup," Harry could hear him sing.

Peter was riding a horse next to his Lord, banging his spoon hand against a frying pan like a gong of war. Harry started making his way towards them, but was intercepted by a new wave of Grindelmort's soldiers.

"How many of them are there?!" he cried. "It never ends!"

"More fodder for my Glory Machine!" Sirius yelled, driving his motorcycle through the enemy forces in a wave of gore.

 _What a total madman,_ Harry thought with amusement, _he actually installed the woodchipper upgrade he was talking about._

"Don't worry, I've called reinforcements!" Hermione called from beside him. "Our species has a millennia old history of fighting dark lords."

Harry saw she was accompanied by two older bookworms, both swinging battle axes of their own.

"Harry, these are my parents, Watson Granger and Radcliffe Granger," Hermione introduced them. "Mum, dad, this is Harry, the boy I mentioned in my letters."

"Pleasure to finally meet you," Mr Granger said, "I've eaten several books about you over the years. Unfortunately, it seems now is not the time for smalltalk."

He raised his axe into the air just as a Death Eater was sent flying in his direction, cleanly cutting the unfortunate man in half.

"Let us bathe in the blood of our enemies, for the glory of the Goblin Nation!" a voice roared in the distance. It was King Ragnok, accompanied by his squad of elite fighters.

"For the Goblin Nation!" they chorused. "And Harry Potter, the Saviour of Goblinkind!"

"I too have called reinforcements!" Luna said, pointing at a fissure that was opening in the ground. A shirtless young man swinging a wooden trident rode out of it on a flock of rabid sheep.

"Behold," he bellowed, sending earthquakes at the enemy with his trident, "the dawn of Ragnarolf looms upon us!"

The chasm in the floor had the additional benefit of exposing the Hogwarts sewer system, allowing Tom to make his way to the surface on the back of the basilisk, who was wearing sunglasses.

"Make way for the true Heir of Slytherin!" he screamed.

A massive chorus of NOOOOOs rang through the Forces of the Light. Harry whirled around just in time to see a cat with suspicious markings around its eyes get hit by a killing curse.

"Naughty little blood traitors get sent to hell!" Bellatrix screeched, before focusing her attention on her next opponent. Thus, she was caught completely unaware when the dead cat transformed into a very alive transfiguration teacher and permanently dealt with her by transfiguring her into an explosion, which she then walked away from _without looking back_.

"Nine lives, bitch," McGonagall stated coldly.

"Guess who didn't dispell his clones yet!" Harry said, deciding it was time to call reinforcements of his own.

He summoned his two clones and began double-fiendfyring Grindelmort's cauldron with one of them, while the other one set up a giant floating screen replaying Luna's memories about Dumbledore.

"What is this sorcery?!" the Dumblegoat called, unsuccessfully shooting reductors at the screen.

Meanwhile, Grindelmort was just as unimpressed by Harry's double Fiendfyre.

"You foolish child," he cackled, "my body is indestructible! It's pointless to try and boil me, as this soup is already souperheated! Also, it's actually sulfuric acid, supplying me with power!"

Harry and his clone switched to reductors and blew up the cauldron, causing Peter and Uncle Vernon to get dissolved in a flood of acid.

"Curse you, Potteeeeerrrr!" Vernon cried, vainly firing his magical drill into the air.

Next, Harry attempted to get rid of Nagini, who had been draped over Grindelmort's shoulders during all this time. However, no matter how hard he tried, the Dark Lord's aura kept his dementor form at bay like a magnet repulses a similarly poled fellow magnet.

Harry was accosted by a redheaded man with glasses.

"Hello Harry," Arthur Weasley said, "I know we've never met before, but please accept this magically enhanced vacuum cleaner!"

"You have my thanks, that's just what I needed," Harry said, putting the bulky part of the machine in his magical core, transforming into his dementor form once more and sucking the soul right out of Nagini from a distance.

"Argh! No one destroys my property and gets away with it!" Grindelmort fumed.

He broomlessly shot up into the sky and started glowing.

"Oh crap, he's charging up his lightning attack again," Harry said, flying after him on his dragon.

Taking advantage of Grindelmort's charge up time, Harry started firing every dark curse he knew at the madman, to no avail. It seemed his body was really as indestructible as he'd claimed.

"HAHAHAHA, YOU PATHETIC WORM," Grindelmort eructed, frying Harry with thousands of lightning bolts, his aura radiating the madness of the terminally deranged, "ELECTRICITY TRUMPS EVERYTHING."

Harry's dragon began sizzling and its wings cramped up, causing it to plummet towards the battlefield below.

"Noooo, Hedwig!" Harry cried, still hovering in the air.

Grindelmort used his distraction to pull his final masterstroke of deviousness on the panicking Potter: he stopped levitating and, while dropping down, transfigured himself into a pool of localised hypergravity centered on Harry, who got ripped from the sky and slammed into the ground, breaking the sound barrier on the way down. While he was still regathering himself, Grindelmort unleashed a relentless barrage of Cruciatus Curses on him.

"I'll give the expression 'to be in a world of pain' an entirely new meaning, Potter!" the Dark Lord proclaimed.

Indeed, Harry had never been in that much pain before, not even during his time with the Dursleys. He started hallucinating and saw himself in a literal world of pain, with pain sheep grazing on pain grass, surrounded by a pain forest. Pain clouds were floating in the sky and little pain gnomes pulled Harry's nails off, made papercuts on his eyeballs and punched him in the dick.

"Oh god what's happening to me?!" Harry screamed, feeling like his brain was about to pop out through his ears. Both of his magical cores shorted out and he felt his magic exploding, causing a poisonous black cloud to cover the entire school grounds and temporarily knock out anyone still alive.

"WHO DARES THREATEN THE HEIR OF THE LAST TRUE VAMPIRE CLAN OF BRITAIN?" a magically amplified voice boomed.

The smoke lifted and Harry gasped as he saw the figure standing in the middle of the battlefield. It was... Lily Potter.

"What the hell?" Harry asked. "Mum? I'm a vampire? I don't get anything anymore, please tell me I'm still hallucinating."

"Harry, my son," Lily said as pompously as you'd expect from an ancient immortal being, "it seems my slumber has lasted longer than anticipated. You're all grown up..."

"Yeah well, you were kind of dead, actually," Harry said, adjusting his glasses and trying to reassemble his balance.

"I wasn't," his mother corrected him. "Voldemort's killing curse just put me in a coma, from which I could only wake up if my loved ones were in mortal danger. Perks of being a True Vampire."

"Nothing like the vampires _I_ learned about," Harry said.

"Yes well, I could go on a detailed tangent about the different levels of vampirism," Lily said, "the low level vampires, the hybrids, the wild vampires, the demon vampires etc etc, but now doesn't seem to be the time. How in the world you never realised your nature is beyond me, your magical core should have clued you in. Humans don't have one after all."

"What?" Harry exclaimed. "But no one seemed to think anything about mine was unusual except for the size!"

"Ugh," Lily said, rolling her eyes, "that ridiculous belief in human magical cores clearly got worse while I was asleep. Anyway, the power he knew not was the power of being an explosive vampire, the end. Oh look, here's the police."

Harry turned his gaze to the gates of Hogwarts. Dozens of aurors were marching up the hill, accompanied by three dementors who hadn't defected to Grindelmort.

They quickly arrested the two Dark Lords, who were just waking up from unconsciousness and thus completely unprepared, and that was that.

"Show's over guys, time to go home," Harry told the disappointed Death Eaters. "I'm as surprised as you are."

* * *

"Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald," Amelia Bones declared in her Serious Business Voice, "for war crimes too numerous to count and multiple centuple murders, the supreme Wizarding Court sentences you to death by drapery. The execution is to be carried out right on the spot, as transporting you two anywhere would be too dangerous."

One of the Ministry dementors pulled a veil made of nonspace from its cloak and brandished it like a demented toreador from hell.

"Whatever," Grindelmort said, jumping onto the Dumblegoat's back. "I'm too old for this shit anyway, and no one has ever fooled all of you for as long as we have. I'll welcome Death like an old friend, for my work here is done!"

"Indeed," the Dumblegoat said. "Go on, my trusty whatever the reverse of a steed is, it's time for our next great adventure!"

"Hoppe hoppe Reiter, wenn er fällt dann schreit er!" Grindelwald sang, missing every note and riding through the Veil on Dumbledore's back to raucous cheering from the Forces of the Light.

Harry had to wipe a few tears from his face.

"I can't believe I'm going to miss those crazy old fucks," he sighed, "they were the worthiest opponents I ever had... Although I really wish I could see their faces once they arrive on the other side and realise I got rid of their horcrux."

"Don't worry, I'll send you a picture," The Uncle said.

* * *

"So you're telling me I've been dating a vampire without realising it?" Hermione asked. " _Me,_ a bookworm? Do you know how many books about dark creatures I've eaten?"

"Yes well, the Evans Clan are True Vampires, which are a special case not much has been written about," Lily explained. "We didn't originate from bite wounds, but got our powers thousands of years ago from magic itself. Sometimes, a True Vampire will be born powerless, just like magical humans occasionally spawn squibs. You may know such creatures as hags."

"Oh hell," Harry said, smacking his forehead, "that's why Aunt Petunia always was such a huge bitch to me! She must have been frustrated because she wasn't allowed to eat me."

"You grew up with _Petunia_?!" Lily shrieked.

"Uh, yeah," Harry said, covertly trying to maximise the distance between him and his mother, "but it was Dumbledore's fault and he's dead, so don't worry about it."

Their discussion was interrupted by Professor McGonagall.

"Excellent work, Potter," Hogwarts' newest Headmistress said, "I'll award Gryffindor fifty points for defeating the worst duo of Dark Lords Magical Britain has ever been cursed with. Unfortunately, being the embodiment of fairness that I am, I can't give you more than that, so you'll have to buckle down if you don't want the Hufflepuffs to win the cup. They're still leading. And don't think this will dispense you from having to participate in the Third Task, either."

With that, she left them again. Harry swept his gaze over the friends, girlfriends and mothers he'd somehow amassed in the last few months.

"You know," he said, "after all is said and done, I don't think my first year at Hogwarts could have started in a better way."

 **THE END**


End file.
